Five months. That’s how long the start of the “2020” Big Ten volleyball season was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The wait is over, though. Illinois opens its 22-match, conference-only slate with a match at Iowa on Friday afternoon. Beat writer Scott Richey caught up with the Illini ahead of their trip to Iowa City:
Advantageous delay
A typical preseason means a short turn from first official practice to first match of the season. Just more than two weeks. Not much time to figure out a rotation that lost an All-American outside hitter in Jacqueline Quade, a key contributor in outside hitter Beth Prince and a three-year starter in libero Morgan O’Brien as a graduate transfer to Texas. A postponed fall season gave Illinois coach Chris Tamas more time. The Illini put it to good use. “In the beginning, obviously, all of us were upset we couldn’t play in a normal season,” redshirt sophomore setter Diana Brown said. “But looking back, we’re a young team, so having all of this time to get our freshmen in with us and getting used to the speed and how strong people are really, really helped us. As time goes on with any team, you get used to playing next to each other. Honestly, I would say this entire time has been advantageous to us just because we are such a young team and will have some young players on the court.”
Watching from afar
The Big Ten and Pac-12 — without question the top two conferences in the country — delayed their seasons to a “spring” start. But volleyball happened last fall in the ACC, Big 12 and SEC. “I was just happy that volleyball was still on,” Illinois senior outside hitter/opposite Megan Cooney said. “I love to get to watch it, and I feel like I even got to watch more because I wasn’t playing myself. That was cool. You could tell how different the season is playing teams back-to-back and playing in (empty) gyms is just a different feel.” Tamas did discuss the oddities of a season in a pandemic with some of his colleagues that coached in the fall. “They said, ‘Use a lot of hand signals. They can’t hear you through the mask,’” Tamas quipped. “We’re getting those down. I think we’re going to learn how it goes as it happens. We can talk to (the team) all we want, but I think until we’re in it, it’s going to be tough to kind of describe how it goes. A big thing for us is to live in the moment.”
Mix and match
Cooney moved to outside hitter in 2019 after two seasons starting at opposite. That versatility is something Tamas has tried to grow team-wide the last several months with the necessity of replacing both Quade and Prince. That group could include the likes of redshirt sophomore Bruna Vrankovic, a now-healthy redshirt freshman Ellie Holzman and true freshmen Raina Terry and Sophie Gregus. St. Thomas More graduate Mica Allison is still listed as a setter, but played opposite at times in 2019 with Brown setting. Freshman Maddie Whittington could also factor in at opposite, but her availability is unknown. She was pictured on crutches this fall, and Tamas declined to comment about her status earlier this week. “We’ve been mixing players all over the place,” Tamas said. “For COVID purposes, too, if we go out and someone gets a positive test or contact traced, someone might get knocked out for a match or two, so we have to be ready to change lineups.”
Ready or not
Brown expressed a sense of excitement with the season finally set to start Friday afternoon at Iowa. Not surprising given the five-month delay. There was also some anticipation in simply getting to play different opponents after the Illini have only gone against themselves for some time. “We’re getting pretty good with mixing up our shots because we’ve played together a few months now, so we kind of know each others’ tendencies pretty well,” Cooney said. “We’re really competitive. We love getting to not only hit on both pins, but block each other on both pins.” That growing familiarity has made evaluating where the Illini stand heading into the season opener a bit more difficult for Tamas and his coaching staff. “I think we’re a pretty good evaluator of what good volleyball looks like,” he said. “We’ve been playing some good ball, but is it a bad attack or a great defensive play or vice versa? I think as you’re going through, you’re just trying to make the best evaluation as you can of who fits where.”
Tough scout
Illinois hasn’t played in 413 days. Iowa’s at 419 since its last match. The Hawkeyes, like the Illini, return just one of their two top hitters from the 2019 season, with Courtney Buzzerio filling that role. The total roster turnover is a bit heavier on the Hawkeyes’ side of the ledger. Preparing a scouting report — at least for the opening weekend — was difficult. “They could do one thing one night, not like it and switch it up for the next night,” Brown said. “It is extremely important to know our opponent and scout and be as prepared as we can be, but I think it’s even more important to be adaptable, play our own game and not let the worry of another team overcome who we are.” That’s the approach Tamas wants his team to take with both teams a bit of an unknown to each other. “It’s just going to be purely maybe about who can get out there and kind of execute in the moment,” he said.
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