There is an age-old debate as to which is more important: talent or experience. This fall, the Wisconsin volleyball team hopes it is the former.
The Badgers’ 18-woman roster includes just three seniors and four juniors, meaning youth will be served — and serving — this season.
Despite Wisconsin’s relative inexperience, the expectations are to improve on a disappointing 11-18 finish in 2009 — UW’s only losing season since head coach Pete Waite took over the program.
“Obviously we’re hoping to do better than last season,” senior captain and defensive specialist Kim Kuzma said. “We’ve been working really hard, we have a great group of new incomers that are really going to help us.”
If the importance of fresh faces sounds familiar, it might be because the Badgers added five freshmen last season, including outside hitter Kirby Toon and middle blocker Alexis Mitchell, who was named to the Big Ten All-Freshman team.
This year, the Badgers own the eighth-ranked 2010 recruiting class according to PrepVolleyball.com. Waite already said four freshmen are likely to start or see heavy playing time: Elise Walch, Annemarie Hickey, Dominique Thompson and Julie Mikaelsen.
“It will take them awhile to gel against other college teams and just to figure out the speed of the game,” Waite said of the freshmen. “But they’ve been making fast adjustments in practice so far, so we’re excited about the future.”
In addition to the freshmen, the Badgers added two transfers, middle blocker Kristy Bourquin and outside hitter Bailey Reshel, who joined the team in the spring.
The addition of so many players means nobody — including last year’s group of starters – is guaranteed a starting spot this season. However, the Badgers think the competition for playing time can only be a good thing.
“I definitely feel like the group that came in is pushing the upperclassmen,” senior captain Jessa Benson said. “They’re causing a lot of competition within positions and it’s something that we need. It’s caused a lot of extra intensity and aggressiveness.”
So far, Waite likes what he sees from both his returning players and the newcomers. In the team’s intrasquad scrimmage, it was Welch who led all players with 12 kills, while senior Allison Wack is the team’s leading returner in kills, after posting 246 last season.
Despite the infusion of new blood, Kuzma isn’t worried about developing team chemistry.
“I think just playing together every day, being together for four or five hours, just being together all the time, I think that helps with chemistry,” she said.
The team will need to gel quickly, as Big Ten play starts Sept. 24 against Ohio State. Waite stressed the need for the Badgers to have success in the non-conference season in order to build confidence for what he hopes is a competitive Big Ten season.
“I think we’re going to surprise some people in Big Ten play,” Waite said. “But it’s important to get that strong confidence in pre-conference play and a lot of wins to build that up.”
A return to Big Ten success could be a tall order though, with four conference teams ranked in the preseason coach’s poll. Among those is No. 1 Penn State, which is riding a 102-match win streak to go along with the past three national titles. And despite the turnover in the Badgers’ roster, Waite’s coaching success (256-100 overall record at UW) and Wisconsin’s talented freshman class was enough to earn the team a few votes in the preseason coach’s poll.
While the Badgers won’t likely be challenging the Nittany Lions for the Big Ten crown, the team has a more reasonable goal: returning to the NCAA tournament.
“Expectations are to get back in the NCAA tournament. That’s a big goal for us,” Waite said. “We’ve had a few injury issues the last few years that have made it difficult.”
Beginning with his arrival in 1999, Waite led the Badgers to nine consecutive NCAA appearances, reaching the title game in 2000 and advancing at least to the second round each subsequent time. However, UW has missed the tournament the past two seasons and in 2008, posted its first losing record in Big Ten play during the Waite era.
The players echo their coach’s cautiously optimistic outlook for the season. A return to the postseason would no doubt be invaluable experience to a team that could become very dangerous down the road.
“I definitely think it’s realistic, yes,” Benson said of an NCAA bid. “I think that we have a lot of improvement that we still need to make, but so far what we’ve seen by everyone’s hard work during preseason, I think that it’s definitely realistic.”
