Western Oregon Weekly Volleyball Digest

The Lady Wolves next game in Thursday at Western Washington. Game time is set for 7:00 PM.

Photo courtesy: WOU Sports

MONMOUTH - Now it’s serious: With 10 non-conference matches and two long trips under its belt, the Western Oregon volleyball team will open Great Northwest Athletic Conference play with.....another long trip, this time via bus to Bellingham to take on Western Washington.

The Wolves will battle the Vikings on Thursday, and will follow that with their first home match of the year on Saturday against Saint Martin’s. Both matches start at 7:00 PM.

Tales from Texas: The Wolves trip to Texas (Austin and San Antonio) didn’t go exactly as planned for Coach Joe Houck and his squad. WOU went 1-4, including 1-3 in the Alamo City Classic. Houck’s team now takes a 2-8 overall record into the beginning of GNAC play.

Getting to know you: Spending a lot of time together is the upside of a young team traveling on the road, and the Wolves have certainly had that. Playing its first 11 matches away from the Physical Education Building, WOU will finally get a home opportunity this Saturday (Sept. 9) against Saint Martin’s.

After that, it is right back into buses or vans as the Wolves will trek to Seattle Pacific (Sept. 14) and Central Washington (Sept. 16). In all, WOU will have played 13 of its 14 matches away from home.

Everyone plays: All 15 players saw action in Texas, as part of Coach Houck’s liberal substitution plan. On the season, 12 of WOU’s 15 players have played in over half the games.

Two-headed setter: Houck’s swarm of substitutions includes nearly equal time on the court for two setters: junior transfer Lisa Tedder (Coos Bay/Marshfield HS/St. John’s) and freshman Amy Heron (Spokane/Mead HS).

Heron has played in 37 games and Tedder 35, with Tedder owning a 5.66 assist average and Heron 4.59. Heron also leads the team in service aces on the year with 16.

By the numbers: In WOU’s balanced attack, junior Shakira Jenkins (Vancouver, Wash./Mt. View/Clark College) leads the team in kills with 2.78, while freshman Lisa Martini (Philomath) is right behind her at 2.46. Jenkins had a career-best 21 kills against Incarnate Word, and Martini had 19 in WOU’s win over Chadron State.

Shakira’s sister Keyanna Jenkins (Sr., Vancouver/Mt. View HS) is next in the kill category with 2.26. Junior Claire Carpenter (Gresham/Centennial HS) leads the Wolves in digs with 4.46 per game, while Martina is the blocks leader with 0.74.

Shakira shines: Jenkins was named to the Alamo City Classic all-tournament team. She had 49 kills in the four matches at the tournament.

National news: The Wolves have played or will have played six teams currently ranked in this week’s NCAA Division II national top 25. They are (7) Cal State San Bernardino, (8) UC San Diego, (15) Central Washington, (16) Cal State LA, (18) Seattle Pacific, and (25) Ferris State.

The strategy: The Wolves will employ line-ups of various sizes and shapes throughout the season, throughout a match and maybe even throughout each game. “We have a lot of kids who can play part of the game, but may not be able to “do-it-all” as of yet,” Houck explained.

“That gives us as a coaching staff an opportunity to tweak the line up and match up with different lineups more than most teams. We have a ton of personnel and systems changes we can throw into the fray, and we should be a really tough read for the other team. The flip side is the usual lack of consistency we may experience from time to time. That type of play requires a special bond if a team is going to be consistent. We have shown signs of being that type of special team so far in practice, but it truly is a mandatory element for us this season.”

Vikings and Saints: The Wolves will take on one of the GNAC favorites on Thursday night in Western Washington. The Vikings are off to a 4-4 start, but like WOU had to open at the UC San Diego Invitational, taking on some of the nation’s top ranked teams.

The Viks won two of three matches this past weekend at the Grand Canyon Invitational, topping Armstrong Atlantic and host Grand Canyon, after losing to Barry of Florida. WWU is picked to finish third in the GNAC pre-season poll and returns libero Courtney Schneider, who set a conference record with 6.59 digs per game last year. She was a first team All-GNAC pick, and a third team Daktronics All-American selection.

Conference Freshman of the Year Tiana Roma is also back, but the Vikings have no seniors on its roster. WWU went 18-9 last year and were fourth in the GNAC with a 13-5 mark. Saint Martin’s has played only two matches in 2006 (0-2), and will play Pacific Lutheran (Wednesday) and Puget Sound (Thursday) in two more non-conference matches before arriving in Monmouth on Saturday.

The Saints have 3-0 losses to Hawaii-Hilo and Hawaii Pacific thus far on their slate. In the losses, freshman Shealum Campisi was impressive with 5.17 kills per game. Saint Martin’s went 1-24 last season and was 1-17 in the GNAC.

Improvement: In 2005, under first-year coach Houck, the Wolves won five more games in conference play than in 2004 and picked up three more wins overall to finish 11-15 and 9-9 in the GNAC.

Houck Headlines: Coach Joe Houck came to WOU with a 97-32 career record, gained from leading the Concordia University program for five seasons (his 51-10 record at Eastern Washington as associate head coach is not included in his career mark). Houck, who also won three state titles as a prep coach at Barlow High School in Gresham, now has a collegiate mark of 110-55.

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