By the time her first season was over, volleyball coach Charita Stubbs knew something had to change. Something was off.

“After the season we all knew there was a real disconnect. We weren’t completely on the same page. It was something that we felt as a staff, and I’m sure it’s something they felt as the players,” Stubbs said. “But neither one of us communicated that very well over the season.”

With that in mind and her desire to learn how to do her job better, this summer has featured plenty of book reading and conference attending for Stubbs.

In the fall, she’ll have to learn something else — her freshman class — when she welcomes 10 new players. One of those players is Megan Rehmer from Greenwood, Ind., who played in junior nationals earlier this summer.

Rehmer said the tournament was a great help for her playing mindset.

“It’s more mental because you’re playing against teams that everyone is good,” Rehmer said.

Rehmer also said she might be able to bring some leadership capabilities to the team in her first season.

“Around shy people, I feel like I can bring them out and really help the team stick together and be a leader,” Rehmer said.

Stubbs will also be facing her second season with the loss of seven players, including key contributors Keshia Raibon and Jessica Williams.

Stubbs said it will be tough to lose Raibon, who was one of two team captains last season, but the team will have to adjust.

“It’ll help us have other people step up. She did a great job in her role last year, and we still wish her the very best,” Stubbs said. “But it’s just like any transition: it’s going to be a little rough.”

Stubbs said Raibon left for personal reasons. Williams, Raibon, Victoria Bryant and Jessica Chew were all players Stubbs recruited who have left since the end of last season. The coach said some of that can be attributed to how fast she had to recruit her first class of players.

She pointed out, though, she doesn’t feel like the departures of players she has or hasn’t recruited are a major problem.

“I respect and I care for all the players that were here that decided to leave,” Stubbs said. “But interestingly enough [of] all of them that left, none of them are playing volleyball anymore except one [Kelley Blakewood].”

But more than anything, Stubbs seems ready to leave her first season — a 2-29 campaign with no ACC wins — behind and get to work on improving her program.

“The fact that we were 2-29 overall, surely that’s what you better be thinking is that it’s a new season,” Stubbs said. “But to me that keeps it fresh; that keeps it exciting; that keeps us motivated to go on and strive to be the best just by taking those little steps forward and building off what we did in the spring.”

Included in the team’s incoming freshmen are four players from California, who along with sophomore Chrissy Zirpolo give the team five players from the West coast state. That’s only one less than the number of players the team has from North Carolina.

Stubbs said the mere amount of time West Coast players spend on the court in high school gives them an advantage in experience over other players.

“Getting players from California to come out here and play automatically makes us a better team because of the amount that they’ve played,” Stubbs said. “But that’s not to say that the players out here aren’t good. They just don’t play as much, so they need more reps.”

With so many new players coming in, the team will get a chance for some pre-season chemistry-building with an Aug. 11-12 retreat to Rock Hill, S.C. The trip comes just days after the Aug. 8 start of practice.

While Stubbs said she is expecting improvement this season, she is cautiously optimistic about how quickly her freshmen and other young players will progress.

“The thing that we will still be plagued by is youth,” Stubbs said. “And you can’t do anything about youth other than have them pay their dues and kind of understand the game as they go along and fight hard through it.”