WAVERLY, Iowa-- For Wartburg's seventeenth-year co-head volleyball coach, Jennifer Walker, it was a bit of a surprise to receive the top spot in the Iowa Conference's preseason coaches' poll.
"We were kind of shocked to be picked as the conference favorite in the preseason coaches' poll with what we graduated," she said. The Knights lost three of their top hitters, their setter and libero.
Even with those graduations, the goals of winning the conference title, capturing the league's automatic bid and competing in the NCAA tournament for the two-time defending Iowa Conference champions remain unchanged.
"I said in the conference preview, I don' think there is an outright leader at this point," commented Walker. "I think the poll is going off of our program's tradition and we still have Bailey Wilson in the middle who will be hard to stop."
"There will be a lot of new faces out there and possibly some first years," said Walker. "Offensively, we have run a 5-1 for years, but may run a 6-2 due to the setters we have."
Those setters include junior Emma Harmeyer (West Des Moines) and freshman Maria Brown (Peosta). "Emma has been waiting in the wings the last two years behind Ramey Sieck," stated Walker. "Maria has been proving to be just as worthy (for the setters spot). We have some good options with our setters."
Senior Bailey Wilson (West Des Moines) returns at the middle blocker position and Walker has been pleased with her preseason camp effort. "Bailey has been doing everything we're expecting out of a senior and a captain," she said.
Wilson is currently the program's all-time career leader in hitting percentage (.346) and is ninth in total blocks (315) and block assists (230) and is tied for tenth in solo blocks (85).
Walker sees Kaity Brower (Dike, Iowa) as filling the second middle position after she played as a right side her freshman year and has transitioned to the middle.
The area that still needs to be solidified is the libero spot. Senior Karly Bown (Lincoln, Neb.) and junior Jamie Farley (Cedar Falls) are the leading contenders. Walker said in the early part of the season, "one set, one of them will be the libero and the next set, it might be the other one."
Bown has led the team in service aces the last two seasons and currently holds the No. 9 spot on the program's career leader list with 143. Her 73 service aces last year were just ten shy of the single-season school record. She had eight service aces against Gustavus last season which matched the single match school record.
"We set up our offense so she is one of the first servers, if not the first," said Walker. "That's how important we place her serving scoring ability for us."
No different than in seasons past, the Orange and Black have a competitive schedule and will face five teams ranked in the AVCA Top 25 preseason poll.
"Our first tournament in Minnesota should be a good matchup," said Walker. "We start against UW-LaCrosse and they took us to a five set match last year. The tournament that will we'll be challenged the most in is the Cornell Invite the third weekend of the season.
"This field is a rematch of last year's NCAA regional as St. Thomas, Cornell, Northwestern and UW-Stevens Point will all be there," she continued. "This will be a true test of where are team is at and where we are strength-wise regionally. It's critical to have a strong schedule as the committee has changed the criteria of who moves into the NCAA tournament and strength of schedule has a lot to do with it. If we can beat some of those teams and if we don't happen to win the automatic bid, we still have a good chance of getting into NCAA tournament."
In years past, the Iowa Conference has not had multiple teams selected to the NCAA tournament. "The Minnesota league usually challenges us and has a few teams get bids," said Walker. "That's the next step for our league in challenging some of those regional competitions to increase the strength of our schedule and so our league can receive some of those at-large bids."
Wartburg opens its season at the Saint Mary Sugar Loaf Classic Friday, Aug. 29 against Wisconsin-LaCrosse.
Waterloo Courier preview
