Tenth-year head coach Cara Currier saw her University of St. Francis volleyball team reach the brink of achieving one of their big goals of the season last fall. The team was one win away – against Trinity Christian in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament semifinals – from earning one of the league’s two automatic berths into the NAIA Championship Tournament.

 

The host Trolls, though, fought off the Saints in four games and denied Currier and her team their first trip to the national tournament since 2002. The Saints finished the season with a strong 26-13 overall record and placed third in the highly-competitive CCAC with an 8-3 mark. USF streaked to a 10-0 start in the season’s opening weeks and stood 14-1 at one point.

 

Much of the talented cast of that 26-13 team returns in 2011, making the Saints again one of the favorites for obtaining one of those two elusive national tournament berths that now go to the CCAC.

 

While the 2011 club is an experienced one, it still has just two seniors – and only one of those is a starter – so the Saints can still be considered a young team. Still a young team, though, that has missed the national tourney by just one match each of the last two seasons.

 

Gone from last year’s team are first-team All-CCAC middle hitter Lauren Hoffman, second-team all-conference outside hitter Kyrsten Becker and former all-league setter Kelsey Polte. All three enjoyed outstanding careers at USF and certainly will not be easy to replace.

 

The list of returnees and a group of talented newcomers make Currier worry less about the losses due to graduation and smile more about what lies ahead for her team.

 

The CCAC volleyball landscape has gotten bigger for the second straight year. The addition of Purdue Calumet last fall pushed the membership to 12 and garnered the second automatic national tournament bid for the league. Roosevelt joins the volleyball ranks this year, expanding the loop to 13 teams.

 

Breaking down the Saints by position:

   

Opposites

 

Sarah Ahline is one of just two seniors on the club and the only starter in that duo. She has been a second-team and honorable mention All-CCAC pick the last two seasons and has anchored the Saints’ right side since midway through her freshman season.

 

“Sarah gives us lots of experience at a critical position,” says Currier. “I look for her bring a great deal of leadership to our young team this year. She has grown as a player and is showing some leadership traits that I have not seen in the past. She is a leader not only on the court but in all those nuances off the court and every successful team needs someone like that.

 

“Ahline is a dangerous hitter on the right side,” continues Currier. “Whenever you have an opposite that other teams have to worry about, it gives you a lot of nice options on the front line.”

 

Junior Stephanie Shostok will likely be the primary backup to Ahline but Shostok is also vying for one of the two starting spots at outside hitter. Freshman Caleigh Hill could also see some playing time at this position.

 

“Shostok has shown over the last two years that she has a very nice right side attack,” says Currier. “Last year she showed us that she could step into different roles and fill in for Sarah on the right side and back up our outside hitters as well.”

 

Outside Hitters

 

Junior Jazzmyne Robbins established herself as one of the top young players in the CCAC in 2009 when she was named the conference’s Freshman of the Year. She picked right up where she left off in her sophomore season with another outstanding year that earned her a second-consecutive spot on the All-CCAC first team.

 

“Jazzmyne is obviously the anchor of our offense,” says Currier. “Last year you could start to see signs of her not just being a banger but also a smart and strategic hitter. She made more adjustments at the net and reacted well to the fact that other teams were designing their defense against her strengths.”

 

The second outside hitter spot may very well be one that is filled by committee. There are four prime candidates to fill the slot vacated by the graduated Becker.

 

Shostok played at both the outside and opposite last year and has the most experience of this group at the outside position. Junior Ashley Thompson missed most of last season due to elbow surgery. She saw considerable playing time as a freshman, primarily in the role of a defensive specialist. Senior Nicole Brown has played some on the outside and on defense and has been used significantly as a server in her first three years at USF. The fourth candidate is sophomore transfer Meghan Ross, who comes to USF after a year at NCAA Division I Western Illinois.

 

“Shostok showed last year that she can handle the position,” says Currier. “She can also pass well and that is a nice asset she brings to the court. Thompson has recovered from her surgery but the question is how quickly she can regain the arm strength necessary to play regularly on the outside. Brown is a smart player and, through three years of doing everything for us in practice, she has learned how to help us just about anywhere on the court. Ross was recruited initially to Western Illinois as a libero. She played a lot of outside in high school so we hope that she can help us the most in that position.”

 

Middle Hitters

 

Sophomore Kate McIlvanie is the lone returnee in the middle for the Saints. McIlvanie stepped into a starting role midway through her freshman season after splitting time with Erin McNeil. McIlvanie joined the veteran all-CCAC performer Hoffman as the Saints’ middles.  McNeil elected to transfer for academic reasons this year, leaving McIlvanie as the lone experienced middle.

 

“I’m very comfortable with what Kate will bring to the court for us in the middle,” says Currier. “She is very talented and will be effective on both offense and defense.”

 

A pair of freshmen will vie for the other middle hitter position. Hill and Paige Reinert both come to St. Francis after enjoying outstanding high school careers in the area – Hill at Minooka and Reinert at Bolingbrook.

 

“Both Hill and Reinert are aggressive, hard-hitting middles,” says Currier. “They both move well and are quick at the net. Reinert has a nice wing span and can put up a big block. I think she can become a prolific blocker. Hill is a tremendous athlete. She may find herself filling a couple of different roles for us this year in the middle and on the right side. In fact, she is versatile enough that she may play different spots throughout her career if needed.”

 

Setters

 

Gone is Kelsey Polte who put her name in the USF record books as one of the top setters in school history. She shared time last year with returning setter Ashley Richards, who replaced the injured Polte two seasons ago as a true freshman and led the CCAC in total assists.

 

Richards enters the season as the Saints’ setter, providing some stability and certainty to the Saints’ offense.

 

“Last year we were unsettled on our setter position in camp and at the start of the season,” says Currier. “This year everyone knows that Richards is our setter. They will get lots of reps with her and have the chance to become very comfortable playing with one another. That is always helpful.

 

“I have no reason not to think that Ashley can compete to be one of the best setters in our conference,” continues Currier. “She is very quick and has more control and a better feel for her sets as she enters her junior year. This should help her reap the benefits of being a thinking setter. That is where I expect to see the most improvement from her this year, in the mental part of the game.”

 

Backing up Richards will be junior Laura Shain, who will also likely see playing time as a defensive specialist just as she did a year ago.

 

“Laura brings a level of competitiveness to the position,” says Currier. “She is an outstanding athlete with great hands. I do expect to see her on the floor a lot for us playing defense for Ahline. She will be an asset to us in many ways.”

 

Also providing depth at the setter spot is sophomore Hannah Hunnicutt.

   

Libero

 

Sophomore Breanne Shaw and junior Dana Wettergren filled the critical libero role last season in a very impressive manner. The duo was replacing Courtney Ambrosch, the 2009 CCAC Libero of the Year and a three-year All-CCAC performer for the Saints. The two will again battle for that spot this season, and both are expected to share the different colored jersey. Whoever doesn’t play at libero will then be one of the regular defensive specialists for the Saints.

 

“If the season started right now,” said Currier right before fall camp opened, “Wettergren would be the starter. Dana would have won that spot based on the solid spring practice she had and her great play in open gyms this summer. Both she and Shaw have consistency in their serve receive. Both are excellent players and it will be a dogfight all season long for that starting libero spot.”

   

Defensive Specialists

 

Joining liberos Wettergren and Shaw are five other players who will compete for playing time on the Saints’ back row.

 

Shain will likely see significant playing time there while also backing up Richards at the setter position. Ross, Thompson and Brown are all candidates for action in the back row when they are not playing at the outside hitter position. Junior Breanna Rivera is coming off shoulder surgery that curtailed her play each of the last two years and hopes to be back in the mix this season.

 

“I like our depth at this spot,” says Currier, “and feel good about our defense as a whole.”

   

The CCAC

 

Now with 13 teams in the conference, the CCAC qualifies for the second straight year to have two teams receive automatic berths into the NAIA national tournament field. The Saints nearly took advantage of that second bid last year but fell just shy in the CCAC Tournament semifinals. They know that had that format been in place prior to 2010, they would have gone to the national tourney in two of the previous three seasons.  With a veteran lineup returning, Currier’s team clearly has made a trip to the national tourney one of its top goals.

 

The conference, though, continues to get deeper and stronger every year. Trinity Christian and Olivet Nazarene shared the regular season title last year. The Trolls, who won a title for the first time in their program’s history, went on to claim one of the two national tournament berths with Saint Xavier surprising Olivet in the conference tourney semifinals to gain the other spot.

 

So, the two top teams from 2009 and the preseason favorites in 2010 – USF and Olivet – each missed out on the league’s national berths.

 

The conference was so balanced last year that four schools – SXU, Robert Morris, Trinity International and Illinois Tech – tied for fourth place behind TCC, Olivet and USF. Three other schools tied for the eighth and final CCAC post-season tournament berth.

 

The balance led to some very competitive regular-season matchups in 2010 and that type of close play is expected again this year.

 

“I don’t think that Trinity Christian or Saint Xavier lost enough to not make them contenders for the national trips again,” says Currier. “And Olivet always seems to be the team to beat each year in the league.

 

“There is just so much parity in the conference now,” continues Currier, “as you can tell by looking at last year’s final standings. I look at the talent level of our team and think that we are really improved form year to year but sometimes I put that in the context of how the conference looked six, maybe seven years ago. There is no longer a huge gap between No. 1 and No. 9 or 10.”

 

The non-conference schedule is tough again, something that Currier seems to do each year when she puts the slate together. In addition to the usual array of weekend tournaments, the Saints have matches lined up against three NCAA Division II opponents – Wisconsin-Parkside, Kentucky Wesleyan and Lewis – over a three-day period in September. USF also will play NCAA Division II Eckerd in their annual fall break trip to Florida.