Rams, Culbert top MW preseason poll
Colorado State has owned the Mountain West in volleyball by winning the past six conference titles, and the coaches don’t see the trend changing this year, either.
The Rams, who opened the season at No. 12 in the AVCA preseason poll, were picked in voting by the coaches to win the Mountain West again this season, also selecting senior right-side hitter Adrianna Culbert as the preseason player of the year on Thursday.
Colorado State has one other player named to the first team, senior libero Jaime Colaizzi.
“It shows respect for our program,” coach Tom Hilbert said. “There’s a tremendous amount of pressure on these guys, because they feel like they have to be the 12th-ranked team in the nation, and I’m not sure we are. We really just need to focus on trying to get better every day and not think about all that other stuff.”
The past two years, Culbert has been a first-team all-conference pick as well as honorable mention All-American. She averaged 2.45 kills per set in 2014 while hitting at a .312 clip, chipping in 13 aces and 3.26 digs per set.
Colaizzi was honorable mention all-conference last season after averaging 4.03 digs per set. She enters the season with 1,085 career digs, good for eighth on the Rams’ all-time list, and her average of 3.49 digs per sets ranks second in program history.
Since the Mountain West was formed in 1999, the Rams have won 14 regular season or tournament conference titles. CSU received seven of the 11 first-place votes, with UNLV gaining two, Boise State one. Those two tied for second in the poll, with Wyoming sitting fourth and garnering one first-place vote.
Training room — Middle Alexandra Poletto returned to practice after three days off after twisting an ankle. Sanja Cizmic, who was on a leap restriction at the start of camp, has been able to advance continuously and had a very strong practice Wednesday.
Room to move — Hilbert said the team will open the season with a 6-2 set, and all that’s left is settling in on a lineup. He said setter Crystal Young has really impressed him to this point, leaving her and Culbert to run the offense.
“Crystal has improved herself athletically, and as a result, she’s a better player,” he said. “She’s much better than she was last spring. I thought it would be a bigger competition between her and Julia (Cubbedge), and it’s really not. She’s clearly beating her out.”
Cubbedge, a true freshman, is still battling for an opposite hitter spot along with Cizmic. And depending on the day, Hilbert likes them both, so he will use the preseason to toy with his lineup.
“I don’t really know, and I think until you get them into competition, you don’t know,” he said
By Mike Brohard
Sports Editor
FORT COLLINS — Quite often when a team is good in one area, it works to remain at that level while giving extra attention to the aspects which lag.
Colorado State’s volleyball team is taking a slightly different approach. Yes, coach Tom Hilbert has his No. 12 Rams work on making those weaker parts more productive, but at the same time, the strength of the Rams is getting a jolt, too.
“Good to great,” CSU assistant coach Brook Coulter said, reciting her buzz phrase for the team defensively. “We’re good, but we’re not great, yet.”
There already is pressure on the team, starting with a national ranking that surprised Hilbert, as well as being picked to win the Mountain West for a seventh straight year. That wasn’t a surprise.
The reality in his mind with the season opener next Friday is his is a team that is without last year’s conference player of the year, Deedra Foss, a four-year starter who ran the offense. She is being replaced by two setters in a 6-2 offense. The team is also replacing one outside hitter, a back row player and an all-conference middle.
While his offense is trying to gain structure in all that change, the defense can help by producing more chances. Hilbert equates a dig to an offensive rebound, and he wants his team crashing the floor for every ball.
“It’s leveraging your strengths,” he said. “To me, we have to do it. I think we are deficient in some other areas, and we are practicing those, but we are good at (defense) and we want to be really good at it. We want to be able to frustrate teams.”
Coulter wants the impossible — to dig every ball.
For Coulter, this was the perfect group to push to another level. She has a three-year starter in libero Jaime Colaizzi, and a two-year defensive standout in Cassidy Denny, a duo that eats up a lot of shots in the back row. They present her with a pair of players always up for a good challenge, and with them in the lead, they can pave the way for someone like true freshman walk-on Katie Craig to live up to the standard.
For one, Coulter started this year with the defensive side of things before getting into serve receive, a reversal of the normal routine. She also had a trick up her sleeve when it came to passing, re-establishing the grading system to a four-point scale instead of the normal three.
Last year, the Rams were a very good passing team, and Colaizzi was just shy of a 2.7 grade. Now, a perfect pass is a much tighter box, a three-foot area in the middle of the floor to give the setters the entire spectrum of the offense to work with, making life easier for both setters.
“I mean, it’s definitely harder to get a perfect pass now,” said Colaizzi. “It’s good, because it does put more pressure on us, but it’s making us better. We’re working a lot on passing to people in the back court rather than three. Again, it’s been hard and it’s been stressing our passing, but it makes us improve. Little things like that make us way better, and that’s why we’re doing it.”
Craig knew she was walking on to a good defensive team, but she admits she was amazed to just how high a standard the Rams carry, just how tenacious Colaizzi was as a libero. Colaizzi said Craig has been up to the task to this point, which is good, because she figures to play as a defensive specialist.
In turn, she’s had to raise her standard of what good defense is, and she credits Coulter’s drills for helping them all improve.
“Her method is awesome. I’m coming here and working so hard, and she works hard on the technique, which is incredible,” Craig said. “It’s hard to do, but I feel like we’re getting better every day.”
