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Preview: Lady Hawks rested, ready to challenge for SSAC crown
GULFPORT, Miss. – Everything is in place.
They have just closed out one of the best regular seasons the program has ever seen. Their experience has combined with a wealth of youthful talent. They are a tight group, about as close as a team can get.
All told, the Shorter University volleyball team has set the stage to make another run at a Southern States Athletic Conference Tournament championship and is considered a top favorite to make the finals of the conference showdown that begins Friday in Gulfport, Miss.
Don’t, however, tell that to the Lady Hawks.
They are only focused on their next match, not on making a fourth straight run to the SSAC tourney title tilt and getting another crack at the best NAIA team in the nation – it’s all about the University of Mobile, Shorter’s opponent in the tournament opener of the single-elimination event. That match is scheduled for Friday at 6:45 p.m. ET.
“We haven’t talked about anything else expect Mobile,” Lady Hawks head coach Jon Moseley said about a huge first-round test for his team that enters the postseason as the SSAC East Division’s No. 2 seed with a rock solid 25-5 record. “It would be a mistake to look past them because they are a team with a great tradition.
“They played in the national tournament last year,” the coach added about Mobile (15-15), one of several newcomers to the conference that could prevent a fourth straight Shorter-Lee matchup in the SSAC title match. “It’ll be harder to get out of our bracket this year. We’ve got legitimate threats on our side of the bracket since the conference expanded.”
Mobile is just the first threat for the Lady Hawks, who are the only other team in the conference other than No. 1-ranked and unbeaten Lee to receive Top 25 votes. The winner of that opening match will square off Saturday against the winner of their other first-round match in the same bracket between Columbia and SSAC newcomer Spring Hill, which claimed the West Division regular season championship and is the top seed from the division.
On the other side of the bracket, East No. 1 seed Lee – the Lady Flames have won the past two SSAC titles after seeing Shorter come away with the championship in 2007 – opens play against Faulkner, while Loyola makes its conference tourney debut facing Southern Wesleyan.
Yet all of the other matches that take place Friday are secondary to the Lady Hawks, as they have concentrated on Mobile with the same kind of work ethic they’ve had all year.
“We’re working as hard as we have all year,” Moseley said about how the team has used the nearly week-long break from action to fine tune their fundamentals and fitness under the guidance of Shorter strength and conditioning coach Ben Lampkin. “He’s been pushing them. I feel good about where we are physically and mentally.”
There’s a good feeling about the core group of five
seniors the Lady Hawks have looked to all year – Loni Beth
Jones, Maggie Parker, Ashlie Stewartson, Katie Van Hofwegen and
Ashley Walton – a group that has been a part of 93 wins over
the last four years and played key roles in Shorter’s 2007
SSAC championship run.
“They’re focused and all of them are playing well
right now,” Moseley said. “They’re confident
they’ll have a strong finish.”
The veterans have been as strong this year as they have for their entire careers.
Walton and Parker became the fourth and fifth players, respectively, in program history to eclipse the 1,000-kill barrier for their careers; Van Hofwegen has become Shorter’s all-time leader in service aces and owns the single-season record in the category; and Jones and Stewartson have put their names in the team’s record book using their respective skills digging and blocking the ball.
That strong nucleus has allowed the Lady Hawks to develop into a potent force
“Our team chemistry is the best it’s ever been and we’ve had good leadership by the seniors,” Moseley said. “There’s a strong sense of unity from the seniors on down to the freshmen.”
That unity was evident from the start as Shorter won 20 of its first 22 matches of the season – the run was highlighted by a record 13-match win streak – with the lone losses coming to Lee.
The numbers that Shorter put up this season back up the team’s unity and the balance.
Sophomore Jordan Corder, who was the SSAC’s 2009 Setter of the Year, leads the team with 916 assists, while four Lady Hawks have gone over the 200-kill mark.
Walton, who joined Corder on last year’s All-Conference first team, leads the squad with 290 kills, sophomore Lauren Olive, a second team All-Conference pick last year, has 257, Stewartson has added 237 and Parker stands at 205.
Olive also leads the team with 57 aces, just nine shy of Van Hofwegen’s single-season record. Van Hofwegen, who was a 2009 second team All-Conference selection, tops the Lady Hawks with 406 digs and junior Jessica Cooper paces the Lady Hawks defensively with 99 blocks.
“They’re all locked into what we’re doing,” said Moseley. “It will come down to everybody on the team doing their job and that’s what they’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks.
“They’re playing good volleyball.”
