Bumping, acing the competition
After walking away from the AVCA Small College Beach Volleyball Championships with the silver medal, the Javelinas are looking to come back for more.
“I think everyone is ready to play. We’ve had four to five weeks of practice, which is different from a lot of sports where they get two to three weeks then play. So I think they’re ready to play somebody different,” said Gary Payne, head coach of the beach volleyball team.
The team last year lost four athletes and saw a few new faces come to the team including sophomore Clara Presmanes-Garate from Bethel (TN) University, junior Emma Daugherty from Feather River College and sophomore Laura Betsa from Oakland City University.
“It’s different from last year, even though we only lost four people, it’s always different when you bring in new people,” Payne said. “It changes the dynamics of the team, and so you don’t know how it’s going to play out until the first tournament of the weekend when we can start seeing them play other teams.”
According to Javelina Athletics, the team has a mix of experience and youth on their roster with nine listed upperclassmen and eight listed underclassmen.
“I think a lot of people have stepped up. We have a lot of people in the sophomore class now. So, a lot of them have stepped up and want to have that accountability on them and they’ve said that to me. They’re like, ‘I want you to keep me accountable with some errors I make.’ and I say ok that’s perfect. I think we really need to step up in discipline as well, but I think that class has just really shown that,” junior and team captain Taylor McCarthy said.
With the season quickly approaching as the Hogs are set to host the Javelina Beach Classic on Feb. 21 and 22, followed by the Javelina Beach Showdown on Feb. 28 and March 1.
“I definitely think there’s a lot of energy since we are so young. We always come into practice with high energy and everybody’s always ready to go. I feel like obviously everybody wants to play, everybody wants to win, but it’s a matter of who’s going to put in the work. And I’d say we’re doing that so far,” junior Rylan Pollard said.
“I think this year we have a lot of different pros on our team,” McCarthy added. “We have a lot of players who can do different things strategically. So, I think we can use those to our advantage once we can see more of our competition.”
