By Ari Strait
The Northeastern University volleyball team, America East semifinalists last year, are bringing five new members onto a squad that head coach Ken Nichols claims has “the most depth ever” for a program he’s been a part of.
Freshman recruits Whitney Turner and Ashley Reeves, transfers Britta Strowman and Ashley Adamczyk, and Karissa Shearer, a walk-on defensive specialist, will try to overcome the obstacles that prevented the Huskies from repeating their 2001 America East championship season.
Turner is an outside/middle hitter from Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and was the Huskies’ first commitment this off season. Mira Costa is a perennial contender for the national high school volleyball championship, and as Nichols likes to say, “You mention Mira Costa and people just know.”
Reeves, from Mesa, Ariz., is another outside hitter, and was described in Student Sports Magazine as the “top player on the No. 1 ranked team in Arizona.” She made the magazine’s “Hot 100″ as a 2003 recruit, and, according to Nichols, is the first top 100 recruit Northeastern has ever had.
Stroman comes from George Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., where she made the Atlantic-10 All-Rookie team in 2001. She sat out 2002 due to shoulder problems, and comes to Northeastern with two years of eligibility left. Listed at 6’2”, she is the tallest member of this Husky team, and, says Nichols, “is a commanding presence because she has all the essentials of a great middle blocker.”
Adamczyk and Shearer are both going to be added as defensive assets to the team, who need to replace both former liberos Kelly Cognac and Sara Bill. Cognac graduated last year, and Bill left the team for personal reasons. Adamczyk originally began her college career at Ohio State University, currently the 13th ranked team in the nation, and played last year at Morraine County Junior College, where she earned a Junior College All-American Award. Shearer walked onto the team this past spring, played in every game of the last three spring tournaments, and was team captain and all-conference at Jackson County Central High School in Jackson, Minn.
Nichols is more than pleased with the prospects for this season, but is also quick to recognize how it happened.
“A lot of this credit needs to go to [assistant coach] Sylvie Quenneville and how hard she works. Our work has been paying off. We should be able to make some real steps forward,” he said.
The team will begin their season with six weeks of out-of-conference matches and three-game tournaments. The first challenge will be Aug. 29-30, when the Huskies travel to California State University’s Northridge campus for matches against the Northridge Matadors and Saint Mary’s Gaels.
While the respective past season records of the Matadors (5-13, 11-16) and Gaels (6-8, 9-18) may make them appear to be underdogs to the Huskies (10-2, 18-15), numbers alone can be deceiving.
The Matadors play in the Big West Conference, which sent four out of its ten teams to the NCAA tournament, and had two of those four teams finish in the top 15 of the NCAA’s final top 25 rankings.
The Gaels, meanwhile, finished tied for fourth in the West Coast Conference, which sent three of its top teams to the tournament, and had two of its own members in the top 25 as well.
Last year, Northeastern opened their season at the Colgate Invitational in Hamilton, N.Y., and breezed through their competition with three game sweeps in each of their three matches.
Nichols looks forward to the heightened challenge this season’s opening tournament will provide.
It’ll be much stronger competition. We were invited to Northridge, and [head coach] Jeff Stork’s a great guy. It’s also an obvious recruiting tour. We’re saying, yes we will make the efforts to play and visit teams out there. They’re the right level teams and we’re getting national exposure,” he said.
These out-of-conference trips give Nichols a chance to both redevelop team chemistry, and introduce new players to his system.
“It’s important that we’re successful and playing great against great teams, but we have to get used to playing together,” he said. “I think I’ll be a little more liberal with subs this year. It’s an up and down kind of game, and if you have the ability to sub in and out so fast, you gotta take advantage. The pendulum swings wildly and we want it to settle in the middle.”
One of the real challenges of any coach, but especially of those whose teams have true depth, is to balance player satisfaction while maintaining a focus on end results.
“This is Division I, not division what have you done for me lately,” he said. “This is by far the most depth I have ever had on a team, and it is particularly good for us. Tournament weekends we play three games, conference weekends we play two. It’s crucial to have that depth for those weekends. Plus, you don’t have to show the other coaches all you got.”
America East Conference play begins Tuesday, Oct. 7, with an away game against the SUNY – Albany Great Danes. The team is home that weekend for matches Friday, Oct. 10, versus the University of Maine Black Bears and Saturday, Oct 11, versus the University of New Hampshire Wildcats.
Nichols is eagerly anticipating this upcoming season, and wants to see how other teams have changed as well.
“Our schedule is well set and more than appropriate,” he said. “I’m very curious to see the depth of our conference. UMBC is our wild card. There will be a wild race for the top four. There’s a lot more depth out there. Everyone is going to get better,” he said.
However, he still does retain that faith that his team will come together when they need to.
“They’re going to be very athletic,” he said. “A lot of the game comes easy to them, and they make it look effortless. People are going to be impressed.”
