The fall semester officially begins Aug. 31, but for the women’s volleyball team, class is already in session. The subject on hand: passing, setting and defense.
Individual summer workouts have come to a close, and with the season inching closer with each passing day, Tommy Harold, volleyball head coach, had the task of cramming in every fundamental in about three weeks. His solution, start preseason practice early.
The entire volleyball team including the freshmen recruited this past summer arrived nearly two weeks ago to begin team practices and drills.
For the returning players, preseason practice is anything but new to them, Harold has held workouts every year since accepting the head coaching position in 2002. But for the freshmen, it’s a different experience.
Instead of finding themselves overwhelmed once classes begin, they begin working with the team early. Harold believes this greatly benefits everyone because without  any distractions or academics to balance, the freshmen as well as the rest of the team are able to direct their attention to improving their fundamentals, conditioning themselves for the season and become comfortable with their new teammates.
“Every year we come in about two weeks before classes to gear in and focus solely on volleyball,” Harold said. “It’s a great way for the freshmen to come in and adjust without having the pressure of worrying about classes and everything else. They can get adjusted fairly easy.”
When the team arrived, they immediately began working on preparing themselves for the Sept. 4 opening against Union University.
Each day consists of three practices, various weight lifting and exercises in the morning, position practicing in the evening followed by a team practice and concluding the day with a team practice.
During team drills, Harold begins building the foundation teaching the essentials of volleyball: serving and returning.
“We have our big rocks and little rocks, our things that we need to get in place as a team. And atop that list every year is serving and receiving,” he said. “If we can serve and pass better than anyone in conference, then we have a really good chance.”
Practices remain consistent with previous years but Ashley England, English sophomore, believes there’s more competition and a personal responsibility on everyone to step up since Keelyn Henderson, Stacey Howard, Mary Seals and Stacey Kirsten graduated.
“We recruited a lot of hitters so that’s going to help offensively since we lost Mary, our big outside hitter, but we are all just having to step up on defense because we lost Keelyn,” England said. “We have Amanda [Oldani] and she has been practicing a great deal more as Libero.”
According to Bianca Paggi, marketing and management sophomore,  practice has been great so far. “It’s going really well, which is good because with the freshmen we have coming in, it’s important that we are meshing well and getting along great as a team. There’s no differences between each other or separation which is perfect,” she said.
    Although they have been practicing for nearly two weeks, Harold thinks the team still has some wrinkles to iron out.
“It’s coming along well, the team still has a long way to go. It’s only the first week and a half but I’m seeing consistent improvement everyday… We aren’t focusing on the end result,  just the process and the improvement issue,” he said. “If each player can get better, then the wins and losses will take care of themselves.”
It’s far too early to indicate how the season will play out for the Lady Wolfpack, but the team remains optimistic despite having a fairly young team.

Craig Malveaux can be reached at [email protected]