North Carolina State University Athletics
PEELER: Newcomers Dominate Volleyball Roster
7/29/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
July 29, 2010
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH, N.C. -
In fact, starting with recently hired head coach Bryan Bunn, there will be more newcomers on the roster than veterans returning to the program.
Bunn's first edition of the Wolfpack has a total of 10 newcomers (six freshmen, two sophomores and two juniors) on the team to go along with the six players returning from last year's squad. But the veteran coach is confident this team, which begins practice on Aug. 7, will lay the foundation of a successful program.
"Everyone will be thrown into the mix the first three weeks," Bunn says. "Our practices will be competitive. We'll find out fairly early where everyone stands."
When Bunn accepted the job in February, he immediately began evaluating players who had not completed their eligibility. Some he knew could help the Wolfpack as the program transitions to its third coach in five years. Some he believed would not.
"We had some attrition on the team and we kind of knew that was going to happen," Bunn said. "But we know the people coming back are the people we need to become competitive.
"We felt like we needed to bring in a few more players. The five we brought in are a pretty good mix of youth and upperclassmen, with some freshmen and some transfers."
Bunn also inherits five players signed by previous coach Rita Stubbs, a recruiting class that also included three scholarship players and two walk-ons. That's a total of 10 newcomers on a roster of 18 players.
The newcomers most likely to make an immediate impact, Bunn says, are a trio of transfers, Rebecah Fogle and Megan Cyr from Colorado and Luciana Shafer from UNC Greensboro. Fogle was a starter for the Buffaloes last season and Cyr, who Bunn recruited heavily out of high school when he was an assistant at Baylor, was a part-time starter. Shafer was a regular in the Spartans lineup last year.
"We don't have a lot of experience on the team, and each of these three has played college volleyball," Bunn said. "We expect them to help."
The Wolfpack returns only one regular starter in senior Alex Smith, who ranks fourth in school history in assists.
He also expects two freshmen, Meredith Richardson and Carsen Mata, to challenge for prominent roles in the lineup, even though they have not yet enrolled in school like the rest of the newcomers. Tennessee-native Richardson has been competing with USA Volleyball High Performance Continental team. Mata, a native of Hawaii, moved to Raleigh late in the summer, but will be ready when practice begins next week.
The other newcomers are freshman Elena Frac, Jessica Groen, Brieanna Merriwether, Anna Moore and sophomore Alexa Micek.
Bunn's recruiting pitch to everyone - including the underclassmen he is already courting for 2011 and 2012 - has been fairly simple: Come to NC State and get the opportunity to play immediately. He has plenty of playing time available, and no one has been promised anything heading into preseason drills.
"We tell them they can come in and make a change in the program," Bunn said. "It is appealing to a lot of people to come in and play right away and challenge for a starting spot right away. That doesn't happen at a lot of places."
But the coach also knows his team will be more reliant than most on strong leadership and good chemistry. He saw the latter as an issue when he took over the team and one of his first duties was to have team-building exercises.
"The culture had to be changed, in terms of the work ethic, in terms of how players treated each other and viewed each other," he said. "We have done that mostly on the court in our off-season workouts and our spring evaluations. But we have also done it during our meetings, by talking about the positive ways you can be a teammate."
With only three seniors - Smith, Taylor Pritchard and Jana Angel - on the roster, Bunn expects his newcomers to take leadership roles. But he doesn't yet know who those people will be.
"Leadership will emerge during training camp and preseason," he said. "I have always believed you can't force leadership on people. It just emerges. When that happens, we will find out who they are and leverage that."
Bunn is eager to get his first season started. He put together a competitive schedule, which includes a variety of top-, mid- and lower-level competition.
"It's exciting and a little scary, but that makes it fun," Bunn said. "That's why you go out, work hard and learn from your mistakes. We will make mistakes, there is no doubt about that. We have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset.
"With every day, every time we have a drill, we will look at it and figure out what we have to do better. And that's what we will work on."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
