Mean Green volleyball kicks off season in California tournament
Terryl Sanders / Intern
The Mean Green volleyball team kicks off its season by flying out to Los Angeles, California for the Loyola Marymount Tournament, as they continue to learn and adapt to head coach Andrew Palileo’s style and system.
UNT plays all three teams present at the tournament: Loyola Marymount University on Friday at 9 p.m., the University of California-Los Angeles on Saturday at 12 p.m., and lastly, the University at Albany on Saturday at 6:30 p.m.
Palileo believes the transition from Ohio State University to UNT has been great and the players are adapting to the system very well.
Head coach Andrew Palileo
“We are having a good time making the adjustment here in Texas,” Palileo said. “The girls are doing a great job trying to implement what we been going through from the end of the season until now in the preseason.”
The players believe Palileo is the right coach to lead the team to a successful season.
“Palileo is like: here are the steps, here’s how we get to the conference tournament and this is how we win the conference tournament and move to the NCAA tournament,” junior middle blocker Courtney Windham said. “We’re thinking our goal is not a conference championship, it’s an NCAA tournament [appearance].”
Sophomore outside hitter Carnae Dillard said the main focus for this year would have to be defense.
“[Our main focus] is to be smooth on defense, getting our defense in sync with blocking, with a lot of new goals since we have a new coach,” sophomore outside hitter Carnae Dillard said.
Loyola-Marymount, a NCAA tournament team from a year ago, is led by fourth year head coach Tom Black and senior outside hitter Kathleen Luft, a preseason All-West Coast Conference team selection.
Meanwhile, UCLA won a national championship in 2011 and are led by preseason All-Pac 12 team selection Kelly Reeves, and Albany has sophomore middle blocker Tatum Jungsten, an American East All-Rookie Team selection.
The games can be seen online tonight at Loyola-Marymount’s athletics website free of charge at 9 p.m.
Photo courtesy meangreensports.com
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