A new season brings plenty of new reasons for Badger volleyball fans to be excited about their team this year.
Wisconsin enters the 2007 season with a No. 11 ranking in the CSTV/AVCA Top 25 Coaches poll - the same ranking that it finished with in the 2006 season - and has three players on the Preseason All-Big Ten team, including sophomore outside hitter Brittney Dolgner, senior middle blocker Taylor Reineke and senior setter Jackie Simpson, who earned Second-team All-American honors at the end of last season.
As always, the Badgers will have to endure one of the toughest conference schedules in the country to make the NCAA Tournament for the ninth consecutive year under head coach Pete Waite's tutelage. The Big Ten boasts five teams with rankings of 16 or better and has two more teams that received votes for a national ranking. No. 3 Penn State, a perennial contender for the national title, has been picked by league coaches to win the conference this year, but Wisconsin was picked to finish second, ahead of No. 9 Minnesota, No. 13 Purdue, and No. 16 Ohio State.
Fortunately for head coach Pete Waite, he has a troupe of outstanding seniors to lead his squad into the new year. Reineke, Simpson, and libero Jocelyn Wack have returned to their starting roles from last year and will look to build on their previous successes. Reineke and Simpson both came off of last season with All-Big Ten honors and Wack shattered the record books with an NCAA record 64 consecutive matches with double-digit dig totals. In addition, defensive specialists Megan Mills and Amanda Berkley have been called on for the third straight year to be the go-to players at the defensive specialist position.
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this season is that there is a host of players on Waite's roster itching for the chance to play and take over the vacant outside hitter and middle blocker positions left by graduated seniors Maria Carlini and Amy Bladow - and nearly every one of them has the potential to earn a starting spot. Sophomore Katherine Dykstra and juniors Audra Jeffers and Morgan Salow all saw some time at the middle blocker position in last weekend's InnTowner Invitational Tournament and made it clear to the opposition that they could block. Furthermore, all three saw playing time at either the outside or right side hitting positions, each ending the weekend with eight or more kills least one match.
But also vying for the outside hitter job is sophomore outside hitter Caity DuPont and heralded freshman outside hitter Allison Wack, the younger sister of Jocelyn Wack. DuPont demonstrated in her limited role last year that she might be the best supplement to sophomore standout Brittney Dolgner and reminded the Badger faithful of this in her start on Friday night when she threw down a .438 hitting percentage against UW-Milwaukee. In Allison Wack's first three matches as a Badger, she tallied 13 kills on 32 attempts and was a major contributor in the win against Gardner-Webb on Saturday.
Additionally, freshman setter Nikki Klingsporn has come out of the shadows to prove that she will be the next leader of the Badger offense when senior Jackie Simpson closes the book on her illustrious career. In the match against Gardner-Webb, Klingsporn played all three games and had 36 assists, six digs, one service ace and had a .500 hitting percentage. Though her role will be limited this year, Badger fans should expect that Klingsporn has what it takes to step up to the plate.
And there is a lot of buzz around the court about freshman defensive specialist Kim Kuzma, who will be looked on to take over at the libero position after the departure of Jocelyn Wack next year. Kuzma saw time in all three matches last weekend and tallied 10 digs during her limited playing time.
I like who we have,"" Waite says. ""The personnel is good, they're solid, they're experienced, they're really knowledgeable on the court. They're able to think through situations and think how they're going to solve the problems that are going on and that's the sign of a good team.""
