Head coach David McFatrich is excited about the direction Mississippi State University women’s volleyball program is moving in as their season kicks off on Monday with a Maroon-White exhibition game.
MSU will officially start their season on Friday, on the road against Southern Methodist University.
Coach McFatrich talked about the progress they have made since he took over back in 2015.
“The first two years have been good years relative to the programs past,” McFatrich said. “Believe it or not we were ranked 258th when I got here and there are 334 division one women’s volleyball programs. We even cracked the top 100 in my first year and finished with 17 wins.”
The numbers prove McFatrich changed the culture of the women’s volleyball team.
His first season back in 2015 was the first winning season the MSU volleyball team had seen since 2006. Even though the team took a slight step back last season, only winning 14 games, they were very competitive.
Part of the change in the culture is the program’s ability to attract foreign talent like senior Jelena Vujcin. Vujcin is originally from Serbia and transferred to MSU last year from Seattle University. She had an impressive junior season in her first year with the Dawgs and talked about her decision to come to MSU.
“I was attending Seattle University and it was in the heart of the Seattle Metropolitan area and I did not feel like I fit there really well so I took a chance to transfer. I remember the Monday I officially got my release paper I got like 300 emails from other schools,” Vujcin said. “It was overwhelming trying to reply to them all but I just remember having a great feeling about the Mississippi State logo when they sent me an email. I came on my visit to Starkville and it felt just like home. Everyone was wearing the same gear and rooting Hail State and I just got goosebumps.”
Vujcin is one of two seniors on the team and will be a key contributor in 2017.
The other senior is Payton Harris, who has led the team since her freshman season and has been on the better players statistically as well.
Aside from those two and Starkville native Khristian Carr, who is a junior, the rest of the team is full of new faces. McFatrich talked about the challenges of having so many new players for the upcoming season.
“We have our work cut out for us this year because we have 10 new faces and seven freshmen,” McFatrich said. “When we headed into preseason that was a question mark for us. Not just the things we have to learn on the court but how is this group going to get along.”
Harris believes the process of integrating the large number of new teammates has been expedited smoothly because they have a great group of girls.
Harris praised her new teammates by saying, “These girls are great. They learn so quickly and are adjusting quickly and it feels like we have been together for months when it’s only been a few weeks so we got really lucky with the kind of girls that we got.”
It remains to be determined how a team with multiple new players will mesh on the court but the team appears to be a tight knit group. Everyone from the players to the coaching staff believes in a family atmosphere which they hope leads to instant chemistry and success on the court in 2017.
Contact Forrest Buck at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
