Commerce, Texas

The 2006 volleyball season ended in October, but the Texas A&M Universtiy-Commerce volleyball team has been preparing for the 2007 season, while in the midst of the spring semester.

The Lions held individual and team workouts, as well as participating in three tournaments this spring, one of which they hosted.

Head Coach Gwen Weatherford had two priorities during the spring season. She had four of her five starters from the fall, have surgery between November and February, so she needed to make sure that they would be healthy enough to play when the fall season kicks off in August.

"Since last fall, we have had four girls that have had surgery - Colleen (Favaro), Brittany (Williams), Wannie (Neal), and Jana (Starkweather). My priority was to get them healthy, rehabbed back, and strong again. Brittany had surgery in November, Colleen in December and Jana & Wannie didn't have surgery until February."

The second goal for Weatherford was to get the team comfortable playing with each other.

"I had eight new girls coming in to the team in the fall, and it takes time to get comfortable with each other and with my system, we did do that, and make progress over the fall season, but not to where we needed to be."

Weatherford pointed out that last fall the Lions were only two matches shy of playing in the Lone Star Conference Tournament.

"Physically, we could do the job, but mentally and emotionally, they as a team really needed that time just to be together, train together, get comfortable, and I really see that there has been a lot of growth this spring."

As previously mentioned, the Lions played in three spring tournaments during March and April. The first was at Texas Women's University in Denton.

"It was not pretty. The girls were not necessarily nervous, but having those three girls - Colleen, Wannie and Jana still out, and Brittany was back, but she was in a new position. We had some girls who didn't get much playing time in the fall, get a lot of playing time in the spring, which was good for them, and was good for me, because I got the chance to evaluate them in game situations. But, just having players in different positions and new players on the court, we still had that little bit of assuredness."

"The second tournament we hosted here, and over that week, from one Saturday to the next, the girls played with a ton of improvement, and played well, played strong," said Weatherford.

The final tournament for the Lions was played at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The other teams in the tournament were SMU, University of Texas - Arlington, and Baylor University, who all compete at the Division I level, with A&M-Commerce being the only Division II team at the tournament.

"My goal going into that, was not necessarily to be winning, but for us to be competing. We all walked away from that day, feeling that we really did compete. We had close scores with everybody we played. We had a couple games that we didn't score over 20, but all the others, we did, so I felt pretty good about that. So we ended our spring season with that tournament, and we definitely ended it on a high note."

Williams met with Weatherford at the beginning of the spring semester and asked if she could change from outside hitter, and train to set instead. Weatherford felt that with the strong core of returnees she was deep enough on the outside to allow Williams to set. Although Weatherford was nervous at first about letting Williams set, due to her inexperience, she attributes Williams' athleticism and court instinct to her success in the spring season as setter.

"I've really been pleased with how she's done. Since she got here the first day her freshman year, she has been very vocal and been a leader for us. One of the goals for me, in that setting position, is to have somebody that is going to be a leader and I think she is filling that role, she is doing a really good job."

Looking ahead to next fall, Weatherford expects that the team will do well, and improve from last fall. She will have five of her starters returning, including Williams, Favaro, Starkweather, Neal and Lauren Flynn.

The other returnees for the Lions include setter Jackie Orr, who provided a defensive presence for the Lions, and Weatherford expects that to continue. Also returning for the Lions will be Mandy Berger, Jackie Orr, and Kathryn Kuczaj.

"Having five starters returning is exciting, and we are going to have five seniors next year, which is definitely a first. We had two seniors this year, and one senior the year before, we just haven't had a lot of upperclassmen, because we are building a new program."

Reflecting on how the team has been able to grow together since last fall, Weatherford believes that the team cohesiveness will be helpful in close matches that they were unable to win last fall.

"I really expect us to win those matches. I'm not saying that we are going to win all of them, but I expect us to turn a lot of those into wins.

In the four years that Weatherford has been the Lions head coach, she has coached many players, but two current players hold a special significance for her - Favaro and Orr. They were both in her first recruiting class as a head coach and they will be seniors in the fall.

"It's nice to actually have some girls on the squad that have been here a while. They know what's going on; they know what the expectations are, and definitely when we get in those situations when we need a leader, its nice to know that they know what's going on."

When reflecting on what it's like from a coach's standpoint, to have players from her first recruiting class entering their senior season, she said,

"It's exciting, but it's weird at the same time, because you're like `they're already seniors? That doesn't seem like it's been long enough for that to happen.' Both of them obviously have physically grown, but being leaders for the team, those leadership qualities are where I have seen the most growth from them."