By Devan Lee |Staff Writer|
Coyote women’s volleyball is looking forward to coming out on top of their conference as they reach the middle of the 2012 season.
As of right now the team sits at a three-way tie for first place in the California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) conference. Ironically, the lady Yotes will be facing the very two teams they are tied with in their next two upcoming matches.
The coaches of the team have their fair share of expectations for not only in the upcoming week, but the rest of the season.
“Were expecting a really tough match [against the teams], especially in their own gym,” said assistant coach Mike Gutierrez. “We definitely feel as of late we are playing better than we have been.”
According to associate head coach Danny Scott, the season started off a little rough for the team, who was plagued by a few unfortunate injuries, but it has definitely turned their game around.
This ultimately meant that many of the newer, younger players had to develop a feel for the speed of collegiate volleyball sooner than expected.
Coach Scott claims that errors due to inexperience were a big problem they faced in the beginning of the season.
Gutierrez also claims that this year has been particularly challenging due to the high level of athletic performance of Coyote women’s volleyball in the past, thus pressuring the team to continue to dominate in their conference much like in the past.
In accordance to the hype, their overall accomplishments have especially been acknowledged in the more recent years of the team’s history. In fact, the Coyote women’s volleyball team has held the CCAA championship title for the last five years running.
In addition to their championships, they have appeared in the NCAA tournament eleven out of the twelve times since the year 2000.
“Typically in the past we have more or less been expected to win a lot of games,” said Gutierrez. “However, because of the team’s youth this year has been a little more of a challenge.”
The team is standing with a winning record of eight wins and six losses and are going into their next game on a five game winning streak despite the minor obstacles.
Scott believes that the key to winning more volleyball games is in both the development in their offense and minimizing their margin of error during games.
“We’re defending well enough, we’re passing well enough, and we’re serving tough enough,” said Scott. “It’s all just a matter of maintaining a high level of offense and limiting errors.”
Hopefully the winning momentum along with the effective coaching strategies will carry on to the following weeks to come, since they have a challenging schedule ahead of them.
They face San Francisco State this week, followed by Sonoma State for the number one spot. However, they are keeping their eyes on for next weeks home game against rival school, UC San Diego.
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