Photo courtesy Quinnipiac University
By: Kyle Levasseur
Placing ninth in the MAAC preseason coaches poll, the Quinnipiac volleyball team is set to prove everybody wrong this upcoming season.
Coming off of a 3-28 season which featured only one senior in Chandler Thornton, this year’s squad brings much more experience to the table led by six seniors and one graduate student.
Head coach Chris Czaplinsk is entering his fourth season at Quinnipiac. He talks about this year’s seniors standing out as his first ever recruiting class.
“The girls that we have right now from Katie Urycki, Allison Leigh, Jana (Kmec), Cody (Michaels), Jamie (Paolucci), Sam Alechko, ever since day one in the gym in preseason they’ve had a different mindset that we’re going to go in and win.”
With such a senior laden team, Emma Ogden believes it will pay dividends for the Bobcats.
“I think that it gives the younger girls someone to look up to. Now that we have six upperclassmen, and there’s 18 of us, it kind of balances out a little more,” the setter said. “There’s a little more structure, there’s a little more leading and following, and everything’s running a little smoother this year now that there’s more of us.”
Only Saint Peter’s sits behind the Bobcats in the conference preseason poll. However, Czaplinski sees something different coming from this year’s team.
“They’ve done everything we’ve asked of them, they’re selfless.” he says. “They put others before themselves, which is great. It’s been a blessing.”
Ogden believes the second-to-last place prediction could be a blessing in disguise for the Bobcats.
“We use it (the polls) for our own motivation. We use it as something to look at and to say, ‘this is what people think we are, this is who they think we are, this how good they think we are,’ and they don’t know how hard we’re working, so it just gives us that much more of an opportunity to go out there and shock them.”
It’s evident to Czaplinski that his players have been using the doubts as incentive.
“They picked us ninth, and every single day they look at that before they come out to practice. They’re showing the heart, the hustle, and the determination in practice to show that is going to be proven wrong.”
Joining the hardcourt this year for the Bobcats are six freshman. Natalie Alechko, Kaleigh Oates, and Alejandra Rodriguez compile the outside hitters. Maddie Lough and Lauren Miller are defensive specialists, and Maria Pansari is a setter. Alechko and Miller are the younger sisters of Sam Alechko and Kat Miller. Miller and Oates also played alongside each other at Villa Maria High School, so chemistry is already established.
Czaplinski believes the team’s identity this season, is different than in the past.
“I think from the very first day of preseason there was a different mindset, there was more discipline. The team as a whole has had a sense of unity since day one.”
So, the goal for this year’s Bobcats? Change.
“I think just going out and changing the whole mentality, change the culture of the program is probably our biggest goal,” Ogden said. ““We’ve had a lot of losing the last three years that I’ve been here.”
