Quantcast The Rocket
College Media Network
dna-canned
dna-canned

Current Issue:

Volleyball taking baby steps toward success

By Haley Gaidosh
Rocket Contributor

Issue date: 9/7/07 Section: Sports
  • Print
  • Email
Junior Anastasia Urbanik goes for the kill in a game last season. Coach Laurie Lokash hopes Urbanik will provide veteran leadership for her young team.
Media Credit: Archived Photo
Junior Anastasia Urbanik goes for the kill in a game last season. Coach Laurie Lokash hopes Urbanik will provide veteran leadership for her young team.
[Click to enlarge]
The Rock volleyball team hopes that the old saying "slow and steady wins the race" holds true as they prepare for their upcoming Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference-West schedule. That is because Head Coach Laurie Lokash's squad has 11 freshmen, including both setters.

Slippery Rock (5-3) won three out of four matches over the weekend at the California University of Pa. tournament, beating West Liberty State, Gannon and West Virginia State, with their only loss coming against Northern Kentucky.

Going 3-1 sounds pretty good, but Lokash continues to stress to her players that this season is a growing process.

"We have progressed from the first to the second tournament, but we still have a long way to go," Lokash said.

Over the weekend, it was apparent to the team and coaches that this learning process will be crucial to a successful season. Lokash said the team needs more consistency, especially with the setting. After losing Sarah Kirsch, Lokash's starting setter the last three seasons, to graduation, the Rock has to count on one of the two freshman setters to set the tone.

"Our two freshmen setters need to become more consistent with the play calling, positions of the ball, and their decisions," Lokash said.

She also said the setters are starting to learn more and are beginning to understand their hitters, but it is still not where it needs to be.

"Hitters need to be able to know where they are hitting from," Lokash said.

Lokash said that if the setters can increase the range of the sets, good things will happen for the Rock volleyball team this season.

Junior Anastasia Urbanik, the starting middle hitter last year who has been temporarily switched to the right side by Lokash, knows how important the sets are to the Rock's success this year.
Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools

Subscribe:
The Online Rocket's Content Posting Policy
Comments which include profanity, personal attacks, or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use, privacy policies, or any other policies governing this site at the time of posting. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. Abuse of this feature may lead to the termination of your account or complete removal of this feature. Your posting of content on this website indicates acceptance of these rules. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

Attention: all comments are manually reviewed by a member of the editorial board. Please be patient and DO NOT RE-POST!

Be the first to comment on this story

  • NOTE: Email address will not be published

Type your comment below (html not allowed)

  I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.




© The Rocket. All rights reserved. No portion of this web site may be reproduced or distributed without the permission of The Rocket's Editor-in-Chief.

Advertisement

Burning Question

What are you looking forward to most about Thanksgiving?
Submit Vote

View Results

AP Video

Advertisement