The Buffalo State volleyball team hosted the first round of SUNYAC Pool Play over the weekend, winning all four of their games in what is the team’s best start in school history.
Despite the great start in conference play, the Bengals season has not been perfect, with the team going 4-11 in non-conference games. It didn’t take long for head coach Maria DePeters to identify a key concern the team has had this season.
“We have a lot of talent on this team,” DePeters said. “We’re just not consistent enough in applying that talent.”
Consistency has certainly been an issue for the Bengals (8-11/4-0). That could be attributed to the youth of the team.
Only seven of the 13 players that are on the team this year played last year. The roster features four juniors and just one senior, captain Paige Ottaviano.
“We’re learning a lot and improving in every tournament,” Ottaviano noted. “There’s still a lot of room to improve in every aspect of the game, but the most is consistency.”
The Bengals, led by Ottaviano and sophomores Kelsey Bashore and Chelsea Moore, opened their season in early September, participating in the Cortland Red Dragon Classic. The team finished 1-3 in the tournament, their lone win against Baptist Bible College.
“Our defense has really improved since then, and our offense is mixing it up more,” Ottaviano said.
Aside from the Red Dragon Classic, the team has participated in two other non-conference tournaments. The Baldwin-Wallace Marcia French Invitational in Berea, Ohio, and the RIT tournament in Rochester.
The Bengals didn’t win a match in either tournament, but DePeters had positive things to say about the team’s play in the RIT tournament.
“We stepped up our attitudes, winning mentality and drive,” she said. “We ran a fast-paced offense and were doing what we needed to do to win.”
That winning mentality carried on into last weekend’s games at Sports Arena. Despite their early-season consistency issues, the Bengals defeated Geneseo, Fredonia, Brockport and Oswego, emerging from the matches as the first place team in the conference’s West Division.
In the 2010 season, the Bengals finished with a 4-4 SUNYAC record, good for third in the division, before they went on to lose to eventual runner-ups New Paltz in the conference quarterfinals. At 4-0 already this season, they have a great chance of bettering that record and making a stronger run in the post-season.
“Our goal is to win SUNYAC’s,” Moore said. “We also want to have a flow on the court. We want to play like a family, not like individuals.”
In order to win more SUNYAC games the Bengals will continue to rely heavily on Bashore, the setter who was named SUNYAC Player of the Week, and Moore, the libero. Bashore has averaged over 26 assists in the team’s eight wins, while Moore has averaged over 12 digs in the Bengals victories.
“Kelsey plays at a very high skill level and challenges the rest of our players to perform at their best level,” DePeters said in praise of Bashore, a transfer student from Division I University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “She will get them the ball.”
Moore was elected to the All-SUNYAC Second Team last year. As the libero, her responsibilities lie more in the defensive side of the game.
“Chelsea leads our back row. She hates to lose and does what she has to do in order to win,” DePeters said of Moore’s game. “She will step up and take charge on serve receive.”
DePeters also noted that while consistency has been an issue with this year’s Bengals, team unity has not, a highlight of the season in her eyes.
“This team in years past has never been close or done things off the volleyball court,” she said. “This year the girls are always together and it is great.”
The close-knit Bengals team will participate in the Fredonia Tournament this weekend and continue to work on their consistency issues in preparation for the next round of SUNYAC Pool Play in October.
“If we can be consistent, we have a good chance of winning more SUNYAC games,” Ottaviano said.
Tom Gallagher can be reached by email at gallagher.record@live.com.