2019 Schedule | Match Notes
Friday, Aug. 30
3 p.m. – Kennesaw State (0-0) vs. Wofford (0-0)
Saturday, Aug. 31
12 p.m. – Kennesaw State (0-0) vs. Georgia (0-0)
7 p.m. – Kennesaw State (0-0) at Clemson (0-0)
Location: Clemson, S.C. | Jervey Gym
Match 1 – Live Stats
Match 2 – Live Stats
Match 2 – Live Stats |
ACCNX
KENNESAW, Ga. – The 2019 Kennesaw State volleyball season is finally upon us, and with that comes a new level of expectations and challenges for the Owls.
"Our big thing all preseason has been we are going to get better every single day and frankly we are still figuring out how this team plays together," said Head Coach
Keith Schunzel. "We are just trying to focus day-by-day on getting better, we are going to keep figuring each other out and figuring out how this team plays best. I like this group, we are showing a ton of improvement, between August 8th and today going into game week, we are so much better than three weeks ago, and I would expect that to continue for a while with this team."
Coming off their winningest season in program history, 24-7, the Owls have recorded back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in program history. The 2018 KSU squad reached the ASUN Tournament Championship match for the second straight season, dropping a heartbreaking five-set result to FGCU.
On their way to the ASUN Championship, the Owls rattled off a program record 14 straight victories but fell just short of capturing the ASUN regular season and tournament titles for a second straight season.
The 2019 squad will look to build off last year's highlights but will have a much different look than years past. Although the Owls return many key veterans, the makeup of this year's squad will be much younger with 10 of KSU's 15 players either sophomores or freshmen.
Lexi Broadwater, one of two seniors on the team along with middle blocker
Madeline Johnson, will be looked upon to help lead the young Owl squad after a record-shattering season last year. The 2018 ASUN Setter of the Year and AVCA All-South Region selection broke the KSU single-season record for assists (1,354), assists per set (11.28) and aces last season (39), and she will be asked to do even more in 2019.
"It's been something we have talked a lot with the upperclassmen about, that some of them are going to have to fill bigger roles," said Schunzel. "They don't have to play outside of themselves, but we do need a little more from each of our players who have been on the court a bunch while the youngsters gel into the team and gain their feet. It's fun to have a young roster because you can kind of see the future. You see all these young kids come in and they are learning and growing and there are a lot of challenges with that too. College volleyball is a different thing. The upperclassmen have been through it, they know what the grind is like, what training is like, what games feel like and the level we are trying to play. It's been fun to watch both the older kids and the younger kids as they've gone through preseason."
Stepping into those leadership roles is a powerhouse junior class that includes middle blocker
Quin Sutphin, libero
Karlee Groover and 2018 First Team All-ASUN selection
Lauren Chastang.
With the graduation of KSU's all-time blocks leader
Liesl Engelbrecht, Sutphin will look to step into those big shoes in 2019. The Fort Mill, S.C., native had a breakout season in 2018. After logging only 11 blocks as a freshman, Sutphin set a new standard with a single-season record 127 blocks last season.
Groover heads into her second full season as KSU's libero after leading the team and ranking second in the ASUN with 510 digs, a mark that ranks third all-time in KSU single-season history.
KSU's leader in kills a year ago, Chastang became just the third Owl in program history to record over 400 kills in a season (417). One of the Owls' two preseason all-conference selections, joining Broadwater, Chastang is coming off a sophomore campaign in which she tallied 15 double-doubles, finishing the year with over 400 kills and nearly 300 digs.
The Owls will also rely heavily on a sophomore class that showed a lot of promise last season. Defensive specialist
Bri Becerra was one of five Owls, and the only freshman, to play every set in 2018, tallying 228 total digs and 38 assists. Joining Becerra is KSU's lone selection to the 2018 ASUN All-Freshman Team,
Dani Ballou, who recorded 192 kills in her first season as an Owl, the third most kills by a freshman in program history.
After seeing limited action in 2018,
Jasmine Brown,
Katie Crocker and
Jessie Cohen will all vie for playing time this season as well as a talented crop of freshmen in
Shelby Dennis,
Lanie Vantrease,
Emma Schurfranz,
Alasha Heard and
Chelsey Abel.
The five freshmen, which include multiple area and league players of the year, a pair of Under Armour All-American Honorable Mentions and several high school career record holders, will try and make an immediate impact for the Owls.
Their impact will need to be felt immediately as Schunzel has set a grueling non-conference schedule that includes seven teams that finished 2018 with a top-100 RPI, six Power 5 opponents and four squads that earned an NCAA Tournament berth.
"We want our players to go into these weekends knowing they are going to get challenged and embracing that challenge, not backing down from it," said Schunzel. "Of course we want to win all 12 games we play out of conference, now is that going to happen, probably not, but I know we are going to compete our butts off in all 12 games and I think we are going to have a chance to win a lot of them. There's no way around it, whether you win or lose, when you are playing a schedule like this, there are going to be a lot of times where your team is going to have to go 'yeah we can do this' or 'we can beat this team' or they are going to back down and if they back down you have to take that as a learning opportunity. You learn a lot about yourself when you play a schedule like this, but that's the fun part. If we were playing some of the bottom 30-50 RPI teams in the country, that's not nearly as fun as playing a schedule like this so you just have to embrace it and go for it."
With a tough non-conference gauntlet ahead of them, the Owls will look to push themselves and rise to the challenge with the ultimate goal of returning to the ASUN Championship and NCAA Tournament.
"We told the team the first night, if we wanted to be 12-0 going into conference play, we could have scheduled that way," continued Schunzel. "We could have scheduled 12 teams that we knew for sure that we would beat and then we would be 12-0, but we probably would not have gotten challenged as much, we wouldn't have grown as much, and then we are not as prepared to play high-level volleyball in conference to go and try and win a conference championship. Yeah, we scheduled ambitiously this year, but that's where we are at with this program and for us to keep pushing it forward, we need to keep challenging ourselves like this. I wouldn't have it any other way."
KSU opens the 2019 season this Friday at Clemson's Big Orange Bash, kicking off tournament play against Wofford at 3 p.m., before diving into the deep end against Georgia and the host Tigers Saturday at 12 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively.
