Danielle Selkridge (right) recorded her 1000th kill during Friday night’s win over Barry. | Casey Budd/The Minaret
As the volleyball team is off to yet another great season, they battled it out against Barry this past Friday night for a tough win.
Senior Jessica Yingling and libero Jen Scholz assisted the defensive side with seven and eight digs respectively.
When Coach Catanach was asked if he feels that his team can win a national championship this year, he replied simply.
“We have all the pieces of the puzzle,” Catanach said. “But those pieces have to play really well at the same time.”
Freshman Jen Scholz is a player performing extremely well but that’s taken the beginning of the season to work out.
“She came in as a recruit, for the position of the libero, and it took her a little while to establish herself,” said Catanach, “but I think she’s taken over that position and she’s playing it very well now. She’s very much helping on our ball control, our first touch, our pass, defense, stuff like that.”
Coming in as a freshman at a powerhouse program and playing the spot of libero puts a lot pressure on Scholz.
“It’s stressful because you feel like you have to perform at the level they want you to. It’s just stressful because you have more fans,” said Scholz.
“They just expect a lot out of me because the girl who was here last year in my position (Julie Howlett) was really, really good. So I feel like I have to be as good as her. I just have to keep learning and doing what they tell me to do to get better.”
The team has played to a 16-2 record this year, despite some very tough matchups.
“I think we’ve played big points well. We had Florida Southern here at home, that’s a big rivalry, every game was down to the wire,” said Catanach about the difficult match.
Senior Jessica Yingling has been leading the Spartans while not showing up much on the stat sheet.
“She’s kind of our high IQ volleyball player that keeps the game in control for us,” said Catanach about Yingling. “She’s critical to our success, she’s kind of the hidden passer and defender and just a solid player for us.”
Scholz mentioned that the team had to focus on playing strong as a team, not solely focusing on individual aspects.
“We do some stuff off the court and on the court we do extra, like outside of practice, we come in before practice, stay after practice, and do stuff on our own, that helps a lot. Just working together as a team in practice; doing 6-on-6 stuff helps us play better as a team.”
Scholz talked about an aspect of the team that has improved recently.
“Our serves have gotten better, which makes the other team out of system more. We’re starting to play better as a whole,” said Scholz.
“It was kind of awkward before, because we’re all lots of new people and so we’re starting to find out groove, I guess.”
Tampa holds an undefeated 8-0 record in the SSC, and are coming off an impressive 3-0 win over Palm Beach Atlantic. If they keep this pace, they’ll be favored to win the SSC championship. They play next on Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. vs. West Florida and Oct. 20 at 11 a.m. vs. West Georgia.
Michelle Speaker can be reached at michelle.speaker@spartans.ut.edu.
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