I asked Kelly a couple of questions and he was kind enough to respond with some great answers. Kelly did confirm that he will have a chalk talk half an hour before game time for each home match. I highly recommend that you attend these as Kelly discusses the opposing team’s strengths, weaknesses and how they plan on attacking them.

The Flyer classic has a great field this year. Illinois is ranked #7 and Pepperdine is ranked #11. Ohio University also has a very good team. When I asked Kelly to discuss the tournament this weekend he responded:

“I don’t think there’s a more competitive tournament in the country this weekend. Illinois returns 5 starters from their National Runner-up team. They are a very big and physical team. They go 6’7, 6’3, 6’3, 6’2, 6’1 with their attackers. Their right-side, Liz McMahon, will take a lot of swings and their middles, Erin Johnson and Anna Dorn, are very experienced and athletic. Their setter, Annie Luhrsen, returns and can give defenses fits with her left-handed attacks. Their Libero, Jennifer Beltran, is as good as there is. They graduated two All-Americans on the left and will have to replace a lot of swings from out there. The outsides will probably be by a three person committee who’s strengths are all different. One of them will be a lefty – which there aren’t a lot of them playing out on the left.

Pepperdine also returns 5 starters from last season’s Elite 8 team plus adds an Illinois transfer (Jazmine Orozco) that will immediately plug into their line-up. Their setter, Kellie Woolever, is extremely crafty. She attacks a lot and is very deceptive. Their returning left-side, Katie Messing, absolutely tore us up last year when we played them. Both of their middles return (Sam Cash and Victoria Adelhelm). Those three players are all over 6’3.

Ohio returns just about everyone and has a really good freshmen class coming in. They want to play extremely fast and will be one of the better blocking teams that we will face all season. I think this will be the best team they’ve put on the floor in the past five years. Their lefts (Lamberti and Bilger) took a lot of swings last year. Hartnett is a player I really liked out of high school, I just didn’t have a scholarship available for her freshman year. She is a great blocker and is turning into the player that I thought she could. They have a really, really good setter coming in that will help them take the next step.

The thing I like about our schedule is that we absolutely have to focus on the next match and the next match only. We can’t have our eyes down the road. If we do that we’ll get hammered. So we’ve been concentrating on ourselves and Illinois. After Friday night, we’ll concentrate on ourselves and Pepperdine.”

I was impressed with the team’s play at the Red/Blue scrimmage and asked who had really made a jump from the previous season. Kelly responded:

“As for our team, I think all of our players have taken a step forward from a year ago. I thought we had a rough spring. First of all, we had quite a few injuries we had to recover from. So we weren’t able to train the way that I wanted to in the beginning of spring. Secondly, there were some things we had to learn in order to hopefully take the next step as a team. We came back from the summer with the best testing numbers we’ve ever had. Every single one of them increased their overall athleticism with the things we test. That has never happened before. We had 8 kids touching between 10’0 and 10’6 at the end of summer. So they’ve all put the work in in order to try and take the next step. Angel Agu and Isolde Hannan have both benefited from the spring and summer workouts. Both are a lot more confident and skilled. Rachel Krabacher’s ball control has taken a massive leap forward. She’s worked hard on her backrow skills and it is coming together for her. I also love where Paige Vargas is. She’s is confident and making some unbelievable plays in practices and is being a great leader. Our four freshmen have had really good preseason’s. They are battling everyday. All four of them will be in situations where they can help us this year and will have big roles.

I’m excited. I’m hoping Frericks is packed all three days this weekend. The competition is going to be top-notch and we won’t be playing back here for a month. So, those are two reasons to come out this weekend. Plus we’ve got seven recruits coming in this weekend (including four that have already committed), so I’d love for them to feel in their bones and get the chills from the Flyer Volleyball experience. I see old pictures of the basketball team playing in Frericks and the crowd stuffed in like sardines and hanging from the rafters…. I’m hoping we bring back some of those glory days in that old gym and absolutely jam it for a few matches this year”.

If you weren’t pumped before reading Kelly’s comments you must be now. Let’s see how many UDPriders can be packed into the chalk talk at 6:30 room 10. My first match will probably be on saturday.