Florida Volleyball Notebook: Aug. 14
Saturday, August 15, 2009 | Volleyball
AUDIO: Coach Wise discussing the team's serve receive (.MP3) Throughout the years, the Southeastern Conference has been known to have dynamic servers who have made it tough for the opposition to score points and side out efficiently. In Friday's practices, Florida head coach Mary Wise emphasized that she expects the Gators to excel at combatting strong serving in 2009.
In two practices on Friday in the L. Gale Lemerand Center, Wise said the team focused on siding out and serve receive, saying she expects her squad to be "elite" in both of those areas.
"Today was all about siding out," Wise said. "One of our goals is to progress to the point where we can be an elite side-out team. That means that you're going to be really hard to score on against another team's serve. We're a much better serve-receive team than we were a year ago."
Heading the charge on Florida's back row this season will be the school's all-time career digs leader Elyse Cusack (Melrose, Fla.). Cusack posted a perfect 1.000 reception percentage in 14 matches last season. Wise also gives credit to the improvement of players around Cusack who are involved in serve-receive, especially junior defensive specialist Erin Fleming (Orlando, Fla.).
"Elyse will stabilize our serve-receive, but the players around her are so much better taking the first ball," Wise said. "We're also killing balls from antenna to antenna and that's how you become an elite side-out team. We're statting it daily in practice to see what our side-out efficiency is and what we are passing as a team."
In addition to the team's improvement in receiving serves, Wise also lauded the progress the team's servers have made during the offseason.
"I think our two jump servers Colleen Ward and Kristy Jaeckel have made a lot of progress in terms of serving," Wise said. "Both of them were capable of bringing some heat, it just wasn't very consistent. They have progressed, as have Erin Fleming and Elyse Cusack. We worked really hard on serving during the spring and it has carried over to the fall."
The Gators will practice twice on Saturday.
REMINDER: FAN DAY - AUGUST 23
Florida volleyball will host its annual Fan Day and Orange & Blue Scrimmage on Sunday, Aug. 23 in the Stephen C. O'Connell Center. Gates open at 12:30 p.m. and autographs with players and student-athletes begin at 1 p.m. The intra-squad scrimmage will take place at approximately 2 p.m.
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