Volleyball: End of spring season leads to optimism

A week after playing their final match of the spring season, Towson head coach Paul Koncir gathered his squad on Saturday to wrap a bow on a successful year at their annual team banquet. Coming off of a 22-9 season that was ended by Virginia Commonwealth in the quarterfinals of the CAA Tournament, Koncir believes his team has made strides since their season concluded over five months ago. "We spent a lot of time in individual techniques and skills," Koncir said. "I think the improvement was distinct." The team played in three tournaments, traveling to Georgetown, George Washington, and most recently, Loyola. Part of Koncir's emphasis was not only on becoming more skilled as a team, but altering the attitude of a squad that struggled to find its identity through portions of last season. "We had a pretty good discussion and some pretty good practices towards becoming something different for this team," Koncir said. "Still playing with skill and playing sharp and playing efficiently, but playing with more a sense of energy and excitedness, and more a sense of connection to the moments and the connection to the game. That, for me, is what we're going to need the most for next year." That responsibility will be heightened in Towson's 2007 campaign for the players filling in for graduates Christina Grempler, Vanessa Happel and Kim Snider, as well as libero Alison Essink who has decided to transfer to division II University of Nebraska at Kearney. CAA Rookie of the Year middle blocker Alysha Fanning will be key at the net. Koncir also says the coaching staff is actively recruiting other middles to step in for Grempler and Happel. "Whatever middles come in are going to have to come in and score in different ways," Koncir said. "We're just not going to find another really long 6-foot-4-inch middle that's ready to come in and do what [Grempler] did." Similar to the middle blocker position, Towson will have competition between recruits and current players at setter to make up for Snider's departure. Lastly, while Essink has held the libero spot in each of the last two years, the Tigers may have to occupy the spot by committee in 2007. "Erika Swan is very experienced and very solid, I think everyone saw what Kristina Shannon started to grow into this year," Koncir said. "I don't know that it's going to be like it was this year with jut one person being the libero and holding that down." Since no players have signed official letters of intent, no names of recruits are yet available for release.

Comments

Be the first to comment on this article!

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out