OKLAHOMA CITY - For the second season in a row, the MACU volleyball team will take the floor under a new head coach, as
Kevin Fitzgibbon takes the reins of the program for the 2019 campaign. Fitzgibbon, though, comes into a situation that sees a core group of returners in key positions, and the Evangels are hopeful that can translate to on-court success quickly.
Fitzgibbon, though, knows that for long-term success to be achieved, it will take a concerted effort to return to the fundamentals of the game, and to focus on being better at those than their opponents.
"That is one area where we want our focus to be this year," he said. "We may not be the biggest, we may not be the fastest, we may not be the strongest, but hopefully we'll be the most fundamentally sound. I believe that if we focus on those, we'll be good to go."
The Evangels have strong returning depth in the middle, at the setter spot, and along the back row, with multiple returning weapons in each of those positions.
Dianne Walter,
Alexa Bass, and
Elena Hadzhieva return as seniors to the Evangels, and they will lead a group of 14 athletes onto the court in August.
Bass,
Morgan Van Meir, and
Ryann Hale all return at the setter position, and each has worked with the returning hitters in the past, which should help the Evangels find their offensive footing early. Walter and
Skylar Brower are back in the middle of the front row, and
Kaylie Walker and
Maegan Plunk return on the back row as passers.
Coupled with a solid group of newcomers, led by FSCAA All-State outside hitter
Hannah Focker, The Evangels should have an opporutinity to be competitive right away, though the schedule does not leave much time to find a rhythm before conference play opens.
MACU will take the floor just five times before opening Sooner Athletic Conference competition on September 6 at Wayland Baptist, and Fitzgibbon knows that the Evangels will need to gel quickly with the difficult conference slate coming up so quickly.
"It doesn't leave us a whole lot of time to prepare," he admitted, "so we will have to adapt and overcome. One of our team mottoes we have adopted is 'control the controllable.' So that's what we are going to strive to do, and I know we have a group capable of doing that."
