The St. Joe’s men’s club volleyball team prepares for their season opener

The St. Joe’s men’s club volleyball team is currently preparing to kick off their first tournament of the season on March 25 in Hagan Arena.

Junior captain Coulton Terry said commitment has been hard to come by, but things are starting to come together.

“I want to get a little more commitment from everyone and try to practice more consistently” Terry said. “We’re a young team so we want to define a culture and keep improving ourselves.”

In a logistical sense, Terry said that high school volleyball is different than club. Practice is not nearly as frequent, which makes high quality play more challenging.

“Club is more challenging in a sense,” Terry said. “In high school, you have more commitment. Here, you have to manage people’s schedules because they’re all doing different things.”

Sophomore middle blocker Rob Young said that the club dynamic also has its similarities to that of high school.

“It’s similar in the way that we all know each other very well,” Young said. “It’s different because we don’t see each other as much. Everyone has a good relationship and everyone is comfortable.”

Terry said that chemistry on the team is good, largely because of friendships within the squad.

“We’re all pretty friendly,” Terry said. “There’s a few guys on the team that I’m personally more close to. That’s the same with everyone. We’re a close team. All of us are friends.”

According to Terry, teammates get competitive when it comes to gametime. However, he also said that it’s difficult to maintain quality of play when practice is limited.

“It gets pretty competitive,” Terry said. “The problem is we don’t practice that much. We want to be competitive. Everyone wants to win, it’s just hard when we don’t practice.”

Going into his first year as captain, Terry said he embraces his responsibilities.

“I’m in charge of a lot of the technical aspects of the team,” Terry said. “I definitely like to have control over it all.”

Terry said the team’s strengths lie within their athleticism.  What the team lacks in skill they make up for in athletic ability, according to Terry.

“All of us are very athletic,” Terry said. “We’re not all incredibly skilled. We can hold down pretty much any team because of our athleticism.”

Headed into his second year on the team, Young already has favorite moments as a player.

“In my first tournament, I didn’t think I was playing,” Young said. “My coach threw me a jersey. I wasn’t prepared mentally or physically. I didn’t think I was at the level I needed to be at until I got there.”

Young said that each member of the team has goals for the season. He said that it’s important to leave it all out on the court.

“Internally we all have goals,” Young said. “Going into every match, we make sure to do everything to our highest potential. We make sure we leave everything out there.”

The Hawks will  play their first tournament of the spring season on March 25 in Hagan Arena.