The Oswego State volleyball team finds itself at the bottom of the barrel in the SUNYAC standings this season. A 7-5 non-conference record has been spoiled by a 0-5 start to SUNYAC play, the only winless team in conference play out of the SUNYAC schools. 

Despite the sour start to conference play, the team still has nine games remaining in the month of October before the SUNYAC playoffs begin. This includes four conference games, including two home matchups this upcoming weekend, Oct. 15 versus SUNY Oneonta and Oct. 16 against SUNY New Paltz. Two teams that Oswego State played tough against in 2019, losing in four sets to SUNY New Paltz and winning in five sets over the Dragons. 

Head coach JJ O’Connell has remained upbeat about his team’s performance due to the heavy front-loading of the team’s conference schedule and the harsh reality that not a single starter returned for this season, which created a tricky combination of inexperience and talented opponents. The tide is turning in O’Connell’s mind though, especially against lesser opponents. 

“We just played all the best SUNYAC teams first,” O’Connell said. “We just had our schedule front-loaded. But we competed pretty well with everybody. So, I was happy. Like I said, we are just a bit more inexperienced than everybody else, not having a returning starter. But our kids are growing up pretty quick. They are learning who has to carry the team when.” 

O’Connell used examples of the team’s five-set loss at SUNY Fredonia and the team’s 27-25 first set loss to Buffalo State as examples of competing at a high level, but just not being able to finish the deal. Finishing is a proven quality of experienced, winning teams and the Lakers are getting close to that point of their growth. The lessons learned and the ability to so far beat lesser non-conference teams like Wells College on Oct. 6 in straight sets are reasons for optimism despite the recent results. 

The team has displayed good play at the net throughout their 2021 campaign and has not hurt themselves with service errors. 

“I think we are still a pretty aggressive blocking team, we get a lot of hands to balls,” O’Connell said. “Which is good and in terms of our serving we have done a pretty good job of keeping balls in. We have been skirting the line of aggressive and in. We have done a nice job of getting to that point. Still, have some work to do on our blocking and on our offense. We need to score a few more points.” 

The scoring for the team has had to come from underclassmen, as the top two in points on the team are freshman Cara Simplicio with 133.0 and sophomore Georgia Ferry with 117.0. Five of the seven top point-getters on the team are underclassmen, with the only exceptions being juniors Emma Fiorentine and Sydney Chiffriller. 

Senior Dana Carey sees the team improving despite the lack of results in the win column. 

“The past few weeks have been tough winning-wise,” Carey said. “But we have definitely been improving every single game. We are coming together a lot more and we are working on a whole lot of new skills. So, we are definitely improving individually but not as a team quite yet.” 

Carey believes that the schedule is turning in the favor of Oswego State and that the team is about to go on a run against some of the lesser teams in the SUNYAC. 

“We would like to win,” Carey said. “All of our future games and get into the SUNYAC playoffs. All of our younger players are definitely learning our system a lot more throughout every game. We are learning our weaknesses and where we have to improve.” 

Junior setter McKenna Corbin has seen a difference in the attitude of the team from the beginning of the season until now. 

“We are building as a team and our chemistry is way more than it was in the beginning,” Corbin said. “Our overall improvement, even though we have a lot of losses, has been getting so much better. We realize what type of team we are.”

O’Connell still thinks the playoffs are a reality for his team due to an expected easier end to the season.

“We could win out in the SUNYAC and get to 4-5 [in-conference] and more than likely be the five-seed [in the SUNYAC playoffs],” O’Connell said. “All four teams are beatable, and we could certainly win all four. We need to, to get in.”

The key for the Lakers, according to their head coach, is to take every game one point at a time and one set at a time. 

Oswego State will have a chance to go on its third winning streak of the season against SUNY Oneonta on Oct. 15, following the team’s win against Wells College in their last game. However, in order to make the SUNYAC playoffs, the team will have to win at least four of their next five games. The team has not won more than two straight games this season. 

The success could come from some of the harder skills to focus on individually but could propel the team. 

“We have been focusing on our defense, to keep things tight in the middle of the court,” O’Connell said. “Trying to hit some off-speed shots. When [our players] come to college they don’t have off-speed but we have been improving on that. Those have been some focus points we have been focusing on. Our service game has been huge for us and we have passed well.”

William Rogers | The Oswegonian