All season, the Winthrop volleyball team has been working hard and racking up the wins, boasting a 7-0 record in conference play after their match against Radford on Oct. 19.
“It feels amazing to be undefeated in conference. Our team has worked so hard this whole year and it is nice to see all of it pay off,” Savannah Roper, junior defensive specialist, said.
“It feels awesome. We are definitely having a lot of fun,” Hannah Lackey, setter for the Eagles, said.
“It’s a good feeling being undefeated in the conference but our main focus is to work harder and take one game at a time. Yes, we’re doing good so far but it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Siani Yamaguchi, senior setter, said.
So far this season, the Eagles have defeated the Big South teams of Presbyterian (3-1), Charleston Southern (3-1), UNC Asheville (3-0), USC Upstate (3-1), Gardner-Webb (3-0), High Point (3-0), and Radford (3-1).
With amazing wins like these and such discipline as the team possesses, there has to be a great coaching and supporting staff helping to guide these players. With assistant coaches Sherisa Livingston and Becca Acevedo, graduate assistant coach Courtney Furlong and a head coach like Chuck Rey, it seems almost impossible not to win.
“The best advice my coach has given me is to not to play for myself but to play to make my teammates better. Volleyball isn’t a game about one person, but is about the chemistry of how the team plays together,” Roper said.
Lackey’s favorite piece of advice from Coach Rey is that, “pro baseball players get paid millions to perform and they’re not even perfect. Nobody is expected to be perfect and everybody goes through periods where it doesn’t exactly feel right. You just have to play through it and get back to where you know you can be.”
Yamaguchi said that her favorite piece of advice is, “5 years from now, the wins and the losses won’t matter.. it’s the relationship you develop along the way.”
Winning matches and receiving great support and advice from coaches and other staff is great and it definitely seems to be helping and boosting the teams confidence and playing ability. What other important elements are keeping the team in such an awe-inspiring winning streak?
“The most important element about our wins were staying disciplined especially when we started to get tired. Communicating with one another throughout plays and working together one point at a time,” Yamaguchi said.
Working well together as a team, is definitely something the Eagles strive for.
“I think it’s the way we work as a team. We all trust each other a lot out there and that makes it easier to work together as a unit,” Lackey said.
What helps the team get ready to dominate the floor each night is meditating on the advice that the coaching staff has given them. It is knowing that they are an unstoppable team and keeping that energy. It is the pre-game music.
“We like to listen to music in the locker room to get pumped up,“ Lackey said.
“[For] our pre–game warm–up, we do some serve receive passing and team pepper [drills] to get touches on the ball. We then have about 30 minutes in the locker room to listen to music and dance to get us excited and ready for the game,” Roper said.
“[For our] warm–up routine, I like to listen to Hawaiian music before matches to remind myself why I’m here, it reminds me of home and my family. I stretch on my own, then go into our team warm–ups,” Yamaguchi said.
Just as their coaches have advice for them, the volleyball players have advice that they would give to fellow and future volleyball players.
“My advice for young girls wanting to be successful in volleyball is to always play with heart and passion. To always be there for your teammates and work hard for every point,” Roper said.
“I would say never give up and learn to be resilient. There are going to be a lot of times when it will be tough or it will feel easy to give up but the successful athletes are the ones who don’t give up,” Lackey said.
“Work hard in everything you do, whether it’s on the court or in the classroom. There will be times when you feel like giving up but those are the times where you have to push yourself even more,” Yamaguchi said.
Be sure to come out and support the Winthrop volleyball team as they take on USC Upstate on Nov. 8 at 6 p.m. in the Winthrop Coliseum.
Photo: Gabby Gardner/ The Johnsonian
