Wolfpack volleyball had little success the past four season, leading to the departure of coach Charita Stubbs. But new coach Bryan Bunn leads the team back to Raleigh this weekend with a chance to show fans its early success in 2010 is no fluke.
“These are all three winnable matches for us,” coach Bryan Bunn said. “Our goal is to out-hustle everybody and out-work everybody. The wins will take care of themselves.”
The team will play at home for the first time this season with a 5-1 record, but must bounce back from a 3-0 loss to Indiana in its last outing.
“It’s early,” Bunn said. “5-1 is nice, but it’s nothing to get excited about. We’ve played six matches, and we still have 25 to go.”
Fans will have plenty of new faces to get to know, with 10 of the players on the 15-player roster new to the Pack this season.
“Bringing in a lot of new people makes it easier to change the culture,” Bunn said. “Because it hasn’t been successful for a while. So we made some changes with personnel so we have a different personality on the court.”
In State’s two tournaments this year, two transfers have found themselves in the spotlight, putting up big numbers to lead the team. Junior outside hitter Becah Fogle and redshirt sophomore setter Megan Cyr transferred from the University of Colorado after the hiring of Bunn, and are looking forward to becoming household names in Wolfpack country.
“It’s great having transfers,” Bunn said. “To start off, they have experience. It’s just a matter of gelling the personalities on the court, and to build the kind of culture we want here. But it’s great to have those people that have experience competing and playing. It’s easier to mold that sometimes than it is a lot of freshmen.”
Cyr, who leads the team in assists with 232 in six games this season, said the early results are encouraging, but that the hardest part of the season is still to come.
“I think [starting well] is really exciting and something we can pat ourselves on the back for,” Cyr said. “But the real test will come once conference starts.”
Fogle led the team in kills in the Indiana tournament with 45, and she said she and the team still need to work hard to be successful.
“It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish,” Fogle said.
Fans will also notice some familiar faces in new roles. Senior setter Alex Smith has moved to right-side hitter, notching 30 kills in the team’s first tournament to earn ACC Co-Player of the Week honors, the first time a Pack player has gotten the honor since September 2008.
“We found out that Alex [Smith] is a very good right side hitter,” Bunn said. “She’s very court-savvy, she knows the game and she sees things happening. So we figured that’s the best way to utilize her this year.”
The N.C. State Tournament starts Friday at 7 p.m. against Georgia Southern and continues Saturday with games against Mercer and Morehead State at 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., respectively.
“I know a lot of people have come and watched our past games and they say its just torturous because we’ll be in it and then we’ll lose point after point after point,” Smith said. “This year, I think they’re going to see a much more entertaining game.”
