Beach Volleyball Returns to Campus, Readies for Spring Season
Jan 18, 2019 | Women's Beach Volleyball
NEW ORLEANS – The arrival of the spring season signifies the return of Tulane beach volleyball, with the Green Wave focusing primarily on team development in their first week back on the sand.
Sixth-year head coach Wayne Holly stressed the importance of coming together as a team over the next month, adjusting to a different dynamic with the full squad now back in action.
"Right now it's a matter of coming together and developing the team as a unit, figuring out who we are as a team," Holly said. "That's the biggest thing we're focused on. We have to be a team first. Then we'll review lessons learned from the fall and re-establish our routines. After that it's about developing pairings and continuing to learn how to be situational. We need to be able to make plays and make them repeatedly."
The team will work to shift its focus from preseason to regular season over the next few weeks, given a quick turnaround before Tulane's first match in February.
"There's a little bit more urgency with our first competition date in sight," Holly said of the team's spring mentality. "There's more excitement too because we know that we're going to be wearing the uniforms and competing against some other really good teams very soon. The urgency to become prepared is really our biggest factor in the spring."
Coming off the heels of a successful 2018 season, marked by a 23-14 record and the team's fifth consecutive nationally ranked year, the Green Wave now expect that same level of play heading into 2019.
"We're working too hard not to understand that we're very good so I always expect success every time I get out there with the players and I think they do too," Holly said. "What this team is capable of doing, we're just going to have to figure out and see. As of now we're just one day into that process so we're confident that we'll have another very good year, the players are too smart and they work too hard not to. Exactly what we're able to accomplish and maybe even what our goals are? We're still unsure."
Though they might not know yet what they are capable of achieving this season, the Green Wave have set their standards high and are only continuing to improve at both the conference and national levels in each season on the court.
Tulane is set to open it's season at the FSU Invitational in Tallahassee, Florida on Feb. 23. The Olive and Blue will match up against host FSU, University of Tampa, Cal Poly and in-state foe LSU in the weekend competition.
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