Coyotes ready to bounce back after Wichita State Tournament
The Coyote women’s volleyball team returns to the DakotaDome this weekend, August 27, to kick off conference play. They’ll host Indiana University-Pudure University Fort Wayne after a tough weekend in Wichita, Kansas.
The Coyotes faced Wichita State University as well as No. 23 Creighton and No. 7 Hawaii. Despite keeping sets competitive, USD was swept 3-0 in all three matches. Head coach Matt Houk said the timing was perfect to play that level of competition the weekend before conference play begins.
“We learned we can compete with just about anyone in the country and even though we came up short, we gained a lot of confidence from it,” Houk said.
The team will take on IPFW on Friday night and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Sunday afternoon.
In preseason polls, both teams were predicted to be at the top of the conference this year.
“It’s anyone’s game right now,” Houk said. “Once the conference season starts, everyone is back to 0-0, and whether you were 12-0 or 0-12, everyone starts with a clean slate.”
Houk said the team has a belief system, and the goal is to prepare every match on its own.
“We want to go 1-0 each match we get to play,” Houk said.
Houk said the Coyotes will look back at this weekend to pinpoint things to focus on for the upcoming weekend. Houk is looking for the specific things they might have to do to have success against both of those schools. Senior Tori Kroll had yet another outstanding performance for the Coyotes this weekend and is ready for conference play to start.
“We’re going to look at ourselves and see what are weaknesses were last week so we can be up the next two games,” Kroll said.
Junior Kendall Kritenbrink, who also put up another standout performance, said the team will be sticking to what they have been doing all season.
“Playing against better competition has been good for us, definitely showing our flaws, and our great sides of our team as well, and getting us ready for conference play,” Kritenbrink said.
Junior Melissa Firtko was named Summit League Defensive Player of the Week last week for her performance in front of the net. With Firtko’s help, the Coyotes ranked 17th in the country in blocks per set last week. In addition, Kroll has broke the USD set assist record and Kritenbrink has continued being the point scorer for the team. Houk said it shows the team is not one dimensional.
“I think that’s a great thing about USD volleyball right now. We can spread the ball around, and you have got to stop a lot of different people to have success against us,” Houk said.
