OKLAHOMA CITY – Heading into the 2017 season, Head Coach Mike Freeman and the Mid-America Christian University volleyball team are looking to bounce back after a 12-win campaign in 2016. The Lady Evangels fell shy of the .500 mark in 2016, missing out on a berth into the NCCAA Central Region Championship, and for the Lady Evangels, getting back to the break-even mark is one of a long list of goals for the 2017 campaign.
"We definitely want to do our best to make the NAIA tournament as well as the NCCAA tournament," remarked head coach Mike Freeman, who enters his fifth year on the bench this season. "We definitely have the personnel to do that once we get on the same page."
MACU made their first trip to the NCCAA Regional under Coach Freeman in 2015, and the Evangels appear poised to getting back above .500 in 2017. The roster includes a dozen players, including five returning players, led by First Team All-Sooner Athletic Conference (SAC) selection Laurel Church.
Church, a 5-10 senior from Moore, Oklahoma, belted a team-leading 322 kills in 2016, pushing her to within seven scoring swings of the 600 kill plateau since transferring from Oklahoma Baptist University prior to the 2015 season. She attacked the ball at a .238 clip, and posted 94 blocks as well, moving her into the top-five on the MACU career lists in both categories.
Church is joined by fellow seniors Melissa Hoppal and Mary (Burkhead) Siefert among the five returning players. Hoppal was named Honorable Mention All-SAC in 2016, playing a solid game for the Lay Evangels all the way around the floor. She amassed 121 kills, 304 assists, and 227 digs in 32 matches as a junior. Siefert added 147 kills and 53 blocks as a junior as well.
Jasmine Pickett also returns for her senior season, and after sitting out the 2016 campaign, Breanna Fritschow will get her first action at MACU this fall.
"Our returning players know what to expect from other teams in our conference," Freeman noted. "We were close to beating some teams last season, so these players know what we did and how we attack those teams differently. Their experience and leadership should be at a high level this season."
The Lady Evangels also bring in seven new faces to join the club this season, with four transfers, two freshmen, and one Lady Evangel from another sport joining the squad for Coach Freeman's fifth season at the helm of the program.
Dianne Walter, Taraan Riley, Adanna York, and Da'Jah Thompson all join the Lady Evangels as transfers for 2017, with Walter, Riley, and York bringing previous collegiate volleyball experience to the lineup. Walter played the 2015 season as a freshman at Clark College in the Northwest Athletic Conference. She notched 92 kills in 71 sets of action for the Penguins, hitting .219 and racking up 65 blocks. Riley had 89 kills in 82 sets played in 2016, and she added 207 digs for North Lake College. As a freshman in 2014, Riley had 76 kills and 250 digs in 76 sets of action, as she led NLC with an average of 3.29 digs per set. York played her freshman year at Allen Community College, dishing out 342 assists and notching 108 digs in 78 sets for the Red Devils. Thompson is a transfer from Kilgore College, where she played two seasons of basketball.
Gabrielle Poling and Ryann Hale join the Lady Evangels as freshmen in 2017 after playing their prep volleyball in the greater Oklahoma City Area. Both Poling and Hale played for the Kaizen Volleyball Club in Oklahoma City, with Poling playing for Edmond Santa Fe High School, and Hale playing her prep volleyball at Putnam City North High School.
Freeman said of the newcomers, "Everyone that has joined the team is very athletic and bring skills that will allow us to use players in multiple positions. We should be bigger at the net this season and quicker than we've seen a team here at MACU since I've been here."
The Sooner Athletic Conference looks to be as tough as ever, and for the 2017 season, the SAC is changing how Conference play is scheduled. The SAC has adopted divisions for scheduling purposes only. Teams will play in one of two six-team divisions, playing each other team in their division twice, and playing the teams from the other division one time. The conference postseason will continue to be seeded based on overall conference record, regardless of division.
The Lady Evangels are in the Western Division, along with Texas Wesleyan University, Wayland Baptist University, Southwestern Assemblies of God University, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, and the University of Science & Arts. The Eastern Division is comprised of Oklahoma City University, Southwestern Christian University, St. Gregory's University, Bacone College, Central Christian College, and John Brown University.
The Lady Evangels are picked to finish eighth in the SAC this year, gathering 57 points in the preseason coaches' poll. Oklahoma City is the preseason favorite to win the SAC (130 pts.), followed by Wayland Baptist (117 pts.), Texas Wesleyan (111 pts.), John Brown (106 pts.), St. Gregory's (85 pts.), SAGU (79 pts.), and Southwestern Christian (78 pts.) ahead of MACU. Panhandle State (47 pts.) slotted in ninth in the poll, with Central Christian (46 pts.), USAO (35 pts.) and Bacone (33 pts.) rounding out the 12-team league.
"Both sides [of the SAC] will be loaded with talent," opined Freeman. "We need to always do our best to defend our home court and try to steal a few wins on away matches. The west division, which we are in, has Wayland [Baptist], Texas Wesleyan and SAGU. Those have always been strong programs and we get each of them two times each. Playing those types of programs will definitely prepare us for post season."
The Lady Evangels' schedule opens with 12 consecutive matches away from home to start the year, including trips to Central Baptist College (Ark.) for a tri-match, and the University of St. Thomas-Houston (Texas) for a tournament over Labor Day Weekend. MACU opens SAC play with a difficult road trip right out of the gate, squaring off with Wayland Baptist and Panhandle State on September 8-9.
The home slate gets underway on September 22 when SAGU visits the Gaulke Activity Center at 7 p.m., and the following day Texas Wesleyan comes to town for a matinee at 1 p.m. After two road matches to close out September at Oklahoma City and Central Christian, the Lady Evangels return home on October 3 for a tilt against cross-town rival Southwestern Christian, and that match kicks off a home stand that lasts the entire month of October. The Lady Evangels play 10 matches in October, all at home, in a stretch that will culminate with Senior Night festivities on October 26 against USAO.
"This team has spent two weeks of preseason getting in shape to be at their best when we compete," said Freeman summarizing where the team is at heading into the campaign. "They have worked very hard personally and are pushing each other to get the best effort out of their teammates. I am looking forward to the possibility of posting the best record season since I have been at MACU. We have the opportunity to be a special team this season."
The SAC tournament will feature the top eight finishing teams in the regular season standings, with the quarterfinals slated for campus sites on November 7. The winners of the quarterfinals will move on to the final site of the SAC Championship on November 10-11. The regular season winner and the tournament champion will secure berths to the NAIA National Tournament as well.
