Santa Barbara Recap
Hello everyone, it’s Cayley Thurlby bringing
you a good report from our latest road trip to Santa Barbara. To say the least, it was
a very successful trip. We were graced with several new faces in the team vans.
Newcomers making the trip were Nickie Thomas, Jessica Keefe, Sarah Mason and Kelly Ong.
These girls didn’t settle for just making the trip, they left their mark on the court too.
Hats off to these girls for a great spring tournament -- especially Nickie and Jessica, who
took their first steps on the court competing at the Division I level. The familiar
faces that made the familiar trip to UC Santa Barbara were Kari Gregory, Kanoe Kamanao,
Juliana Sanders, Cayley Thurlby, Raeceen Woolford, and Tara Hittle (who is now a Sophomore…
that excites her to say the least; the other day she was trying to debate that she wasn’t a
true freshman).
Let’s get down to the details.
I know all of you are dying to hear what we looked like out on the court.
Let’s start from ascending height order…Kelly Ong was our little spark plug in the back row.
She brings a great amount of energy to the back row and the middle blockers who she calls the
“Big Girls.” When Kelly wasn’t running around in the different colored jersey making
digs she was encouraging the blockers to shut the other teams’ hitters down.
I think she even went as far as taking credit for a few of those blocks.
Raeceen Woolford did a great job in the back
row providing a stable passing force and coming up with some amazing defensive maneuvers.
Rae and Kelly traded off playing libero and serving specialist over the eight games that we played.
Kanoe Kamanao set the entire day from 9 a.m.
till 3 p.m. She worked really hard to run the offense, making bad passes into beautiful
sets and getting the new girls into a great rhythm. As always, she provided a stable force
in the back row, coming up with some great digs.
I played a few games swinging from the right
side and a few playing strictly back row defense for Jessica Keefe.
Jessica Keefe had a great weekend… after
working out some kinks, she started ripping the ball with that fast arm swing of hers.
She has made such great progress over this spring in the weight room and the gym and her hard
work was really evident on the court.
Tara Hittle made great strides taking on the
key passing responsibilities in the absence of Ashley. She was solid in the back row with
her defense and passing, and of course carried the consistency into the front row as well.
She whipped that quick arm of hers and really punished a lot of balls; she is one of the several
players who really improved her arm strength. Believe me, sometimes it is not pleasant to
be on the receiving end of her hits.
Kari Gregory and Juliana Sanders worked hard
to put up a solid block regardless of whom they were standing next to.
What I mean by this is that our hitters were constantly switching in the rotation throughout
the day, but these two girls worked extra hard and didn’t make the unfamiliarity an issue.
Nickie Thomas did a great job working the
net with her big block as well and did a really good job being quick in transition as Kanoe
got the ball to her at some pretty unexpected times.
Sarah Mason is our new secret Weapon…
aka “the new girl” who transferred in this spring from Oregon. But this Hilo local is
very familiar with our program. We welcomed her on the team right when we met her, and
if you could have seen her swinging at the ball this weekend you would know that she fits
right in. She is a 6’3” powerhouse on the left, who loves the line but can put the ball
down anywhere using her long arms. Oh, and her jump serve is deadly as many teams found out.
At the end of the day, we defeated Cal State
Fullerton and Cal Poly in two games and split one apiece with Pepperdine and UC Santa Barbara.
It was a great trip (as always) in the gym and outside.