The University of Illinois Springfield volleyball team has had a busy preseason with eight scrimmages, including matches with National Junior College Athletic Association Division II national champion Parkland and five Great Lakes Valley Conference teams.
“It gave us a chance to see the competition and teams in our conference that we are going to play throughout the season, but it doesn’t actually count,” UIS junior outside hitter Tiffany Sunderlin said.
With the Prairie Stars set to kick off the regular season Friday as hosts of the inaugural Capital Classic at The Recreation and Athletic Center, the preseason provided UIS volleyball coach Trey Salinas with a fairly clear vision of what the team should look like.
“We feel like we have a lot of firepower,” he said. “We feel like our defense and serve receive are on point to compete well.
“We’ll continue to be a really good blocking team. Defensively, we’ll be all around a much better defensive team as well. We should be significantly improved from last year.”
“We have six new girls and five of them are hitters, so we’re looking good," UIS sophomore libero Isabela Fonseca said.
We’ve also added some depth in giving us another option for the setter as well as adding another middle to the equation, which has really helped expand our offense.
This story appeared in The State Journal-Register on August 31, 2016.
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