March 27, 2010
HOUSTON - The Texas A&M volleyball team played an exhibition spring tournament Saturday at Rice. It was the first competition of the spring season for the Aggies, who return only two starters from last year's NCAA Sweet 16 Team and have a freshman who graduated high school in December starting at the setter position.
The Aggies went 1-2 on the day, opening with back-to-back losses against Miami and Rice -- both NCAA teams in 2009 who return a majority of their players -- before rebounding to defeat Arkansas in the final match of the one-day tournament.
A&M dropped a close first set to Miami, 25-22, but then struggled with passing and defense in a 25-13 second-set loss. Matches were played using a best 2-out-of-3-set format.
"We started off all right, especially considering we had a bunch of new people on the floor," said A&M Associate Head Coach John Corbelli, who was filling in for Head Coach Laurie Corbelli who was out of town recruiting. "Allie (Sawatzky, setter) was a little tight in her first time out, but we rotated a lot of people through the lineup and that made it difficult on offense."
Against Rice, the Aggies won the first set, 25-19, but then dropped the next two, 25-12, 15-13.
"In the first game we were much better with out pass-to-attack and the offense was smoother," John Corbelli said. "But then we experienced some passing problems, which made it tough for Allie and caused us to struggle on the outside. We also hurt ourselves with five service errors in the final set.
"Rice and Miami had more people with more court experience and they had returning setters. Realistically we knew it wouldn't be easy against them, but I would have liked to see our play be a little more consistent. We couldn't get the ball to the middles."
A&M ended the tournament on a high note, defeating Arkansas, 25-23, 27-25.
"We were still moving players around and trying different things, so it was good to get the win," Corbelli said. "Caitlin Adams helped stabilize the right side, and we were for the most part in control the entire first set. We went up 23-18 and they got back within two before we closed it out."
A&M struggled at the start of the second set, falling behind 9-2 before rallying to get the win.
"It seemed like we played poorly in the second set of every match," John Corbelli said, "but we did come back this time. We were down 23-19 and manage to come back and win it. Allie started to do some nice things when our passing got better."
Overall, Corbelli was especially pleased with the performances of outside hitter Chelsea Ringel and Adams, who played mostly on the right side, filling in for Alisia Kastmo who missed the tournament with an ankle injury. He also was impressed with the play of senior transfer Sarah Grace at the libero position, as well as Sawatzky and the team's overall blocking.
Corbelli did however expect the team's defense and passing to be better than it was.
"Our defense and passing needs work," he said. " At times the defense looked really good, and other times it was very spotty. A lot of it had to do with how we were moving people around to different positions.
"We played seven games, and I like how we played in five of them. I wish we could have won more, but we made some young mistakes. The passing put Allie in difficult situations. But the offense was creative and Allie moved the ball around when the passing was there."
A&M currently has no other spring competitions scheduled, but the staff is considering adding a match or two in April before the Aggies conclude their spring training.