Now that the Fresno State volleyball team has its first Mountain West win, the ‘Dogs will head to higher ground — in both location and strength of opponents.
On Thursday, the Bulldogs will visit the Wyoming Cowgirls in Laramie, Wyoming. The Cowgirls are 2-3 in Mountain West play after getting swept by the Colorado State Rams, enough to rank them in the top five of the conference.
Speaking of Colorado State, the No. 7-ranked team is next on the Bulldogs’ slate, scheduled for Saturday at Fort Collins, Colorado. The Rams are currently undefeated in conference matches and have only lost one game this year overall.
“Offensively, we’ve gotten better really fast,” said Fresno State head coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell. “Defensively, we’re not getting the output we’re looking for, and we’re playing better teams this weekend. We’ve been working on ways to defend them.”
Netherby-Sewell expressed hope that the team did just as it did on Saturday: learn from its previous game and improve its play. In the San Jose State game, the ‘Dogs were able to sweep the Spartans — something they had trouble doing on Thursday against Nevada.
With the departure of five seniors who played on last year’s squad, Netherby-Sewell has made this an experimental year. Newcomers to the team have seen time in various positions. For example, Lauren Torres, who was recruited as a middle blocker, has seen time as a right side hitter and has 53 kills this year.
Torres, as a native blocker, had trouble with blocking on Thursday (only one block in five sets played), but after some work with Netherby-Sewell, she was able to show improvement on Saturday (three blocks in three frames).
“We watched video, and [Lauren] started analyzing how the sets developed and how the hitters come in,” Netherby-Sewell said. “She actually made some changes and started touching more balls on Saturday.
“Even though we’re not experienced, or we’re not getting as many wins as we want, as long as we’re seeing that kind of progress, it’s really fun to watch.”
Carly Scarbrough, freshman outside hitter from Sarasota, Florida, said that the team sat down and figured out what its strengths and weaknesses were after the loss to Nevada. After that, the ‘Dogs were focused on rebuilding — what they had been doing was not effective.
“We were just trying to take everything down to the basic level,” she said. “We try to simplify a little bit, but still be aggressive. We worked really hard on the mental aspects of things and clear our heads.”
So, as the Bulldogs face the Cowgirls and Rams, keeping a clear mind and attacking the team aggressively will be job No. 1 — including playing the game one set at a time.
“[The Cowgirls] are going to be tough, but I think if you can serve them tough, they’re not as strong,” Netherby-Sewell said. “Colorado State, obviously, doesn’t have any holes in what it’s doing. The Rams have been ranked as high as seventh in the country, so we’re going to have to have an outstanding performance against them.”
