Bumping Expectations

The 2007 season for the Eastern Washington University women’s volleyball team was not supposed to win.

An interim coach (Irene Matlock) was at the helm in a department with a new athletic director, and a roster filled with underclassmen, in a conference with annual win-hogs Sacramento State and Portland State. The Eagles were picked to finish fifth in the Big Sky Conference for all those reasons.

However, the ladies wouldn’t let those distractions affect their play. Following a 1-9 start, with the lone victory coming against Colgate University, the Eagles found their stride, finishing 12-4 in Big Sky play and making the year-end conference tournament. A victory over Northern Arizona gave EWU their 11th consecutive appearance in the league semifinals, and their regular-season finish was their 12th straight year finishing in the Big Sky top three.

2008 brings a new coach, Miles Kydd, with plenty of knowledge and relationships with the current Eagle roster. Kydd had been an assistant on the bench for four years, under former Head Coach Wade Benson and Matlock, and had seen EWU accrue a 78-43 overall record in that span.

“It’s very comfortable; I helped recruit a lot of these players,” Kydd said, most of whose head coaching experience has come from up north. Kydd coached the women at his alma mater, the University of Regina (Saskatchewan), from 1994-2002, advancing them to one national championship game in his tenure.

“I know the players pretty well and that is obviously a bonus,” Kydd said. “We had a pretty young team last year, only two seniors this year.”

Those seniors, outside hitter Chelsea Ross and libero Mandy Daniels, anchor a team loaded with freshmen and sophomores, who face a brutal non-conference schedule, packed with schools from bigger conferences.

“Our goal is to beat some of those teams,” Kydd said. “They are where we need to be. We look at our preseason as a chance to see some of the teams we hope to see in the postseason. We want to beat the Washington States, we want to be competitive with Oregon, that’s our vision for the program.”

The structure of the NCAA Tournament is such that, barring two incredibly talented teams from the Big Sky making national waves, the only year-end tournament berth comes from the conference tournament champion, regardless of record. However, the senior Daniels looks forward to that challenge.

“I think we have a good, stable group of players,” Daniels said. “I think it is very exciting to be playing such good teams.”

Despite the overwhelming batch of young talent and a new coach that’s not so new after all, the Big Sky coaches still do not see past their big two: the Vikings and the Hornets, who received all but one of the nine first place votes in the coaches’ preseason poll.

One more hurdle the Eagles face is the prospect of playing their first 11 matches away from Reese Court.
Look for the ladies back home in Cheney, Thursday, Sept. 25, when they finally commence their home schedule against the Montana State Bobcats. First serve is slated for 7 p.m.

For more information on the Eagles and their run for the NCAAs, check out their Web site at goeags.cstv.com, and follow their progress through the season at www.htsports.org.

Story by Darren Shimp. You can reach him at darren@htsports.org.