The St. Thomas women’s volleyball team has eight rookies, but head coach Don McKay has high hopes.
“It’s going to be really exciting — very close matches I think, all year,” said McKay, who’s entering his second year as the team’s coach. Judging from what he saw at an ACAA tip-off tournament in mid-October, he believes the teams in the ACAA conference are going to be close in the standings.
“Every team is going to be able to beat each other. It’s going to be fun,” said McKay.
McKay is looking to improve the final standing of the Tommies as the women finished with six wins and 12 losses last season.
The tip-off tournament revealed to McKay what the Tommies need to work on this season.
“We need to be able to get more stops at the net and more offence,” said McKay. “We work on our defence pretty hard but if we serve well and pass well, get the odd kill, we’ll be fine.”
Nicole Munro is a left side hitter for the team, and has been playing STU volleyball for four years. She said the team of fresh faces is already developing good chemistry.
“Even though we have eight new players, I think that we are jelling really well together and there is a lot of dedication. I think that’s going to play out really well as the season goes on,” said Munro, who was a go-to player in the back-court and recorded 138 digs last season.
“One thing we really need to work on is just closing the blocks,” said Munro. “Our defence has been adjusting well to balls going through the blocks but we’re just kind of trying to work on the speed of middles getting over to the wings.”
This season, McKay has his sights set on a goal that the Tommies narrowly missed last season.
“I’m hoping to be able to say at the end of it that we’ve met our goal, which is to make playoffs,” said McKay.
