Two years ago the Illinois volleyball team came within a game of winning an NCAA title. Last year the Illini had what senior libero Jennifer Beltran called a “tough” season, falling short of an NCAA tournament berth.
“It was a really emotional rollercoaster,” Beltran said.
The Illini, tasked with following the most successful season in program history, played well throughout the season, but eventually youth and one of the toughest schedules in the nation proved to be too much for the team to overcome. Illinois finished the year 14-16 overall (8-12 conference) and missed the NCAA tournament.
While you were out
While most of the University’s student population was enjoying summer, the Illini were playing world-class competition in a 10-day trip to Italy. Illinois was able to play challenging competition, including the Italian National Team, and bond in its time out of the country.
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“We wanted to come together as a team,” head coach Kevin Hambly said. “We wanted to play great competition and test the things we were working on. I think we got all of that out of it.”
The Illini finished their time in Italy 3-2 before coming home where the team wrapped up the summer with two preseason all Big Ten selections in sophomore outside hitter Jocelynn Birks and junior outside hitter Liz McMahon.
What to watch for
Three major components to the Illini’s success this year will be the play of Beltran and how the team fares in both the nonconference and conference portions of its schedule.
Beltran, who is currently second in school history and 13th in Big Ten history in digs, says she has been working on expanding her range on the court and her role as a leader on the team, and both will come in handy this season.
In order to succeed, Illinois will have to be on its A-game from the get-go, as it faces five ranked teams, including No. 1 Texas and No. 5 Washington in the first three weeks of the year.
“You have to play great competition, so I schedule tough every single year,” Hambly said. “We don’t really have an off match, we’re playing a ton of ranked teams, whatever that means, and a ton of really good teams.”
Once the Illini get into their conference schedule, the season won’t get any easier, as the team will play seven more top-25 schools in conference including No. 2 Penn State on Oct. 18 at Huff hall and No. 6 Minnesota to end the season.
“The (Big Ten) is the best league as far as top to bottom,” Hambly said. “Night in night out, you have to bring it because anyone could beat anybody. There’s probably nine teams, maybe 10, that could make the tournament this year.”
Nicholas can be reached at goldwyn2 @dailyillini.com.
