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Monday, March 18, 2024

Florida Volleyball enters ‘new territory’ for 2018 season

<p>After losing four star athletes to graduation, the UF volleyball team welcomes seven new members for the 2018 season. </p>

After losing four star athletes to graduation, the UF volleyball team welcomes seven new members for the 2018 season. 

About eight months ago, the UF volleyball team fell to the Nebraska Huskers in the NCAA Championship.

Despite the heartbreak the team experienced on Dec. 16, there were plenty of positives that came out of the 2017-18 season. A 30-2 (17-1 SEC) record and the graduation of four All-Americans is nothing to dismiss.

But that was all last year.

The only time the Gators might be brought back to December’s heart-wrenching moment is when the team watches the Huskers hang their fifth title banner in Bob Devaney Sports Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Aug. 24, where both Florida and Nebraska will take the court for the first time in 2018.

After the banner is hung in the rafters, a new season officially begins. There can be no more living in the past, and coach Mary Wise said her players will have to trust the process.

“We’re in new territory,” she said. “We’ve never graduated four All-Americans.”

It’ll be difficult not to notice the absence of mainstays like Rhamat Alhassan, Carli Snyder, Caroline Knop and Shainah Joseph. But the graduation of the four seniors brings in new opportunities for the program to grow further.

Seven new players will join Florida’s roster this season – four incoming freshmen, two walk-ons and one North Carolina sophomore transfer.

Thayer Hall, a freshman outside hitter, said her experience so far at Florida has been nothing but surreal.

The 18-year-old from Spartanburg, South Carolina, was joined by fellow freshman and middle blocker Lauren Dooley in January, just in time for spring training.

The duo agreed that by starting before summer, it was the best choice each of them could have made because it gave them time to adjust before the fall season was completely underway.

Wise concurred.

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The coach said that training in the spring takes on a different look than it does in the fall. The pace is slower and skills are broken down into their most basic parts instead of focusing on upcoming matches, Wise said.

Dooley, a 6-foot-6 native of Plano, Texas, will present unique challenges to teams throughout the season because of her size, Wise said.

“She’s so high above the net,” Wise said. “It’s something you just don’t see in the women's game and that physical.”

On the other hand, Hall presents other hurdles for opponents.

“We’re going to ask a huge load of her,” Wise said. “It would have been a shock to her system had she come in the summer.”

Hall’s summer was busy in more ways than one. In addition to team camps and training, she traveled to Los Angeles in July as a finalist for the Gatorade Female High School Athlete of the Year award.

With the Dorman High School Cavaliers, Hall led her team to a 43-6-1 record and the Class 5A state championship for the 2017-18 season. She logged 638 kills, 361 digs and 36 blocks during her senior year and won the Gatorade Volleyball Player of the Year award.

Moving on from her high school career and into a new season of life, Hall couldn’t be more thrilled.

“I felt like my heart was always here,” she said.

Hall and Dooley are joined by five more additions this fall: freshman setter Marlie Monserez, the younger sister of redshirt senior setter Allie Monserez; right side hitter Haley Warner; walk-on defensive specialists/liberos Riley Fischer and Paula Cerame and ride side hitter/setter Holly Carlton, a redshirt sophomore transfer from UNC.

Wise, entering her 28th season with the Gators, said this year’s team has a new look and will be a shift from last year’s, a squad which relied heavily on its senior leadership.

“It’s not just the talent that graduates, it’s the experience,” Wise said. “There’s no substitute for experience.”

Wise is particularly excited about the addition of Carlton, who enters as a 6-foot-7 left-handed attacker and setter.

The veteran coach said the program plans on using Carlton’s talent from a more offensive approach and likes having the flexibility of using her setting skills in a “hybrid offense.”

Wise, who has led the Gators to 23 regular-season SEC Championships, is also looking forward to the team’s tougher schedule. This fall, the team will face No. 2 Nebraska, No. 3 Texas and No. 10 Southern California in its first eight days of season play.

“We’re just throwing them into the deep end,” Wise said. “We are not tip-toeing into this season.”

Florida volleyball kicks off their 2018-19 season with the Orange vs. Blue match Saturday at the O’Connell Center at 2 p.m.

 

@faiello_mari

mfaiello@alligator.org

After losing four star athletes to graduation, the UF volleyball team welcomes seven new members for the 2018 season. 

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