Start of semester marks beginning of off-season training

By Don Gromala
Head Women's Volleyball Coach

As a staff, we’re really excited to have the girls back on campus. It was a good break, although it felt a little long. The girls got back at it this past week with the first day of off-season training on Tuesday. Our main focus for the week was strength and conditioning and open gyms just to get them back in the swing of things. We didn’t want to thrust them back into intense training just yet.

We will begin individual workouts this coming week, and for the next month-and-a-half we’ll really focus on technical things—arm swing, hand positioning, platform angles, etc.—that our girls need to work on. Gradually, we’ll progress into more team stuff as we get closer to our spring season. Spring practice will begin in March and we will be playing in four tournaments in April.

The off-season is huge for any program. You’re always going to be losing some great players and experienced players, so you’re trying to develop some new and different leadership. Girls are going to take on different roles and that’s the exciting part of it as a staff to see what kind of growth your team has during this time.

Part of the reason that so much development takes place in the off-season is that it’s a time that allows us to take a step back from the competition and scouting aspects and focus just on ourselves. We saw some great improvements last off-season physically, which then carried over into our season this past fall. Our training focuses on helping our girls become faster, stronger and more explosive.

I am very proud of the work our girls have done in the classroom since coming here. We had a team GPA of over a 3.2 in the fall, which is on par with where we were a year ago. This is such a great group of girls. They understand that to excel on the court, you have to excel in the classroom as well. We’re definitely look forward to getting back-to-back AVCA Team Academic Awards. That hasn’t happened here in a while and is something we want to get year after year and not just every once in a while. We echo those sentiments on the court. We don’t want to just have a good year. We want to continue building and getting better and better and maintaining at the same time.