Volleyball Mocs trained to be tougher this year
In 2017, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga volleyball team wasn’t tough enough.
That shouldn’t be the case this year.
UTC coach Travis Filar said the Mocs, who will open their season today against Belmont at the Tennessee Classic in Knoxville, “got back to their roots” in all aspects of the program during the offseason.
The Mocs finished 13-18 overall and 6-10 in the Southern Conference last year, when they dropped eight of their nine five-set matches before falling to UNC Greensboro in the quarterfinals of the league tournament. For a program that won the regular-season championship in 2015 and advanced to consecutive SoCon championship matches, last year was a step back.
“We needed to be grittier last year, and we weren’t,” Filar said recently. “We were very honest with ourselves in January: We didn’t have the year we envisioned, and we had way too much talent to have that type of year and lose that many close matches.
“We had to make it tough. When you get to five-set matches, it’s not about volleyball. It’s not athlete to athlete — we had the personnel. We were not tough enough, not gritty enough.”
The solution to that was “Fifth Set Fridays.” Players got up at 6 in the morning for ROTC training with Capt. Kevin Beavers and Sgt. Michael Calderaro, who were charged with pushing the players mentally.
“They exposed where we lacked in discipline, where we lacked in overcomplicating things,” fifth-year senior Eden Murray said. “You’re doing a lot of mental reps and having to overcome things, but mentally you have to get through it. You find yourself in situations even on the court that (you think to yourself), ‘This isn’t what I thought was going to happen, but I have to finish it mentally, so how do I get there?’
“It was a big break for all of us to understand that sometimes you’ve got to do things you don’t want to do, but do them successfully.”
Filar’s 2018 team has four seniors, five juniors, four sophomores and a program-record seven freshmen.
The Mocs will face five Power Five opponents in nonconference play, including 22nd-ranked Michigan State on Saturday in Knoxville before finishing their time at the Tennessee Classic that night against the host Lady Volunteers. The Mocs also will play at No. 5 Kentucky on Sept. 16, a day after playing Louisville, which won 24 games and advanced to the NCAA tournament last season.
Getting back to their roots has been the Mocs’ offseason calling card. If they can do that, they’ll be right back in the mix of SoCon contenders.
“We had to get back to being a blue-collar, disciplined, tough group. We had to recreate that,” said Filar, who is entering his eighth season at UTC. “The kids took the challenge and got better for it. We had a great summer, and this fall we are experienced and more competitive at every position than we ever had been. Our roster is solid from one to 20, and every day we competed. No positions are safe, everything has been up for grabs and they’ve responded appropriately.
“We’re more experienced and definitely tougher, and we’re prepared for the rigors of the fall and this schedule. We want to get back to where we right deserve to be, and that’s competing for the Southern Conference championship.”
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.