Team left with a bitter taste

Written by Daniel Gunderson Tuesday, 11 May 2010 08:00

While everyone goes away for the summer, fall sports teams at NDSU will be gearing up for its third year of playoff eligibility.

The volleyball team gathers around Head Coach Erich Hinterstocker.

Last year, the soccer team made noise by capturing a share of the regular season Summit League title. The football team made noise in all the wrong facets of the game, but still had two players skilled enough to get signed on by NFL teams. And the volleyball team won 34 straight conference games and 20 straight home games last year.

It is, however, the last game of the year that everyone remembers. The Bison fell in five sets to IPFW at the Bentson Bunker Fieldhouse in the Summit League Conference Championship game. Fortunately for the Bison, though, this upcoming season looks just as promising as the last two.

The Bison lose two key players to graduation, both of whom had a significant impact on this team’s success in the past two years. Mattie Johnson was the team’s setter for most of her first three years on campus, but saw more time on the bench last year as junior Jennifer Lopez took over that role. The Bison also lost two-time Summit League Defensive Player of the Year Kelly Lopez and will be very hard-pressed to replace her contributions. While Johnson’s replacement, Jennifer Lopez, is already an established player, whoever replaces Kelly Lopez will be getting their first shot at starting libero.

Senior Abbey Perez, one of four seniors on the squad, will most likely be asked to fill in at the libero position. She will also get some help from sophomore defensive specialist Andrea Henning. The other seniors, Lauren McLaughlin, Nicole Sheridan and Brooke VandenBergh, will all have important roles on the team.

McLaughlin and VandenBergh will look to control the outside, both with their blocking and killing abilities. When the ball is funneled toward the middle, you can expect two-time Summit League Player of the Year Chrissy Knuth to do damage. An offensive juggernaut, Knuth has the ability to take over games with her talent.

While the starters for this squad are extremely talented, the backups are no slouches. Junior Janna Deyle can come in and play excellent defense at the middle of the net. The Bison have two very talented outside hitters in Megan Lambertson and Brynn Joki. Joki showed flashes of brilliance last year, but her inconsistency was more obvious. Lambertson played sparingly as the season went on, so both of these players will need to step up their game for the Bison to have continued success in the Summit League. Finally, the Bison add a new player to the mix in Georgia Tech transfer Jordan Kissman. With Leah Johnson transferring, Kissman will be the Bison’s new backup setter.

With all this talent and experience, the Bison will be hard-pressed to not have the type of success they did last year. Also, most of this team knows the bad taste last year’s defeat left in their mouth and will have a new type of determination for this season.