April 18, 2009
WACO, Texas - The Texas A&M volleyball team won the Baylor Tournament today, going 3-0 to complete an undefeated spring exhibition season.
"Overall I am very pleased with the way the team played today because it was bracket play, which is something we don't do real often, and it was a nice challenge for the girls," said John Corbelli, who was A&M's acting head coach while Laurie Corbelli was away on a recruiting trip. "They wanted to win and there was no fooling around.
"In each game there was probably a time when somebody was struggling, but we always managed to find who wasn't struggling and found ways to be successful, which was a huge plus. Even the people who were struggling, they might have been struggling early, but they were there at the end. They were there when it counted. That is a huge accomplishment for all of them, because we played with a lot more confidence."
The Aggies, who went 4-0 in their only other tournament of the spring, began the day with a 25-21, 22-25, 15-12 victory over Texas State at the McLane Student Life Center on the Baylor campus.
"We got off to a good start in the first set," John Corbelli said. "We were really just finding our way, getting things going, and the team really played well. I thought Texas State also played really well. They were very fired up to get after us, and the team responded very nicely.
"We kind of let down in the second game, and Texas State took advantage of it. We tried to respond toward the end of the game and it was too late, but I was very happy with the way we started the third game. We went up 6-0 and then 11-6 but then we kind of cruised our way in, which was a little disappointing. It was good enough to win.
"I switched setters out in every game during the day, and a lot of times it was taking the setters some time to get into it and feel good. Every first game, we played well because the setter knew what was going on and had just gone through warm-ups. But the setter who sat the first set -- they have both been bothered by bad backs the past week -- took a few minutes to get going. Usually once they did that, they recovered."
With the win against the Bobcats, A&M advanced to the semifinals to face TCU, which had opened with a win against Stephen F. Austin. The Aggies swept the Horned Frogs, 25-15, 25-23.
"It was a phenomenal first game and we played some awesome defense and just walked all over them," Corbelli said. "TCU also came out playing pretty well, but Jola (Kelner, setter) was on fire and all our hitters were on fire. We were passing great.
"The second game, TCU gave it a really good try. (Setter Kristen Schevikhoven) went in cold, but once she got moving and the team got used to Schevi's rhythm, we came back and took control to pull it out. We were down 22-21 but then came back to win."
A&M then faced Big 12-foe Baylor in the championship match. The Aggies came from behind in each set to win the nail biter, 26-24, 27-25.
"The Baylor match was a lot of fun," Corbelli said. "Baylor was fired up and had a lot of fans there. They came out playing really well with aggressive serving and playing very nice defense and jumped out to leads, but we just kept plugging along.
Baylor had game point at 24-23 in the first game, but the Aggies came back to win it.
"We just came back and took it from them," Corbelli said. "Each time it got to the end, the team really buckled down and played great defense and transitioned. When they put their minds to it and focused on it, they got the job done."
In the second game, Baylor had built a 22-16 lead when Kelner, who had struggled early in the set, stepped to the service line and led the Aggies on a five-point run to get the Aggies within 22-21. Baylor was at set point at 24-23 and again at 25-24 before the Aggies reeled off three straight points to close out the set and the match.
"We trailed early in both of the games, but when it counted, we executed very well and we did a lot of nice things," Corbelli said. "The Baylor crowd was quite shocked.
The Aggies were able to go undefeated despite having only one person who has regularly trained at the middle blocker position.
"We have been playing with one person (Stephanie Minnerly) who has been training in the middle, but she is a freshman who didn't see any action this fall," Corbelli said. "For most of the spring Mary (Batis), Kelsey (Black) and Jenny (Banse) were sharing the middle spot, a position they played some in high school but haven't played in awhile. Yet we still managed to put it together when we needed to put it together.
"At times as a group, the offense was really special. They were trying to run fast out the front row and the back row. We did not use a libero. We used a defensive specialist so that we could have five hitters at all times. That was good that both setters at times really got to explore what their hitters could do and what we could do with that many hitters to choose from.
"There were times that Dylan (Faulkner, defensive specialist) did a really great job, especially late in the both games against Baylor where she came up with the tremendous digs and kept us in it. Mary, Jenny, Sarah (Ammerman) and Kelsey were solid all day all the way around. They all did very nice jobs. As a team, it was really special to see."
The Aggies return nine letterwinners - including six who will be seniors in the fall -- from last year's team that finished 16-14 overall and went 11-9 in the Big 12, tying NCAA regional finalist and 12th-ranked Iowa State for fourth place in the conference standings.
"The last couple of the years, we really lost our chance to play in the NCAAs early in the season." Corbelli said. "We blew opportunities. We always played well in November, but apparently it has been too late. Today we wanted to see if we could start with pressure and respond to it and to continue to meet the challenges as we went on. We did that today.
"We are very much hoping that they gain a lot of confidence from it and they can believe in themselves. They have to identify the things that made it possible for them to play well and keep that in mind as we go through the summer, and hopefully they stay hungry enough to remember that this is just off-season. It is just getting ready for the fall, and that is the important thing."