Southeast Missouri State volleyball team gets to core of team values

~ The squad opened practices Saturday with specific team values in mind

During the spring, the returning members of the Southeast Missouri State volleyball team decided upon nine core values to embody as a team and to provide a backbone for the program.

Some of the values they came up with are dedication, pride and communication, but the one that has been stressed the most is unity.

For senior outside hitter Andrea Baylin it embodies what she learned from last season, and was one of the focuses as the Redhawks began practices Saturday.

"I think that's a big thing," Baylin said. "And that not one person is going to win this game for us, even if they're having an amazing, [record]-setting game, it's not going to work unless everyone is working together, so I think that's our mindset right now if it's on the court or off the court. We're all respecting each other, we're all working our hardest for the other people -- it's not just for ourselves."

Southeast Missouri State middle blocker Jessica McElderry hits as Allie Henkelman looks on during a practice Saturday at Houck Field House. (Fred Lynch)

The Redhawks, who finished second in the Ohio Valley Conference West Division last year, will add six freshmen into the mix this year: outside hitters Krissa Gearring and Carlie Cuffle, middle blockers Jessica McElderry and Nzingha Clarke, libero Jessica Lambert and setter Allie Henkelman,

All-OVC selection Emily Coon, Julie Shives, Berkley Idel and Colleen Yarber were seniors that Southeast lost, and redshirt freshman Halle Brown also is no longer with the team.

"The first few days we're going to be taking things pretty slowly," Southeast coach Julie Yankus said. "Just trying to get the new people kind of [learning] our key words for different techniques, get to know our system, how we want things done. So that's going to take a few days of just kind of slowing it down a little bit. But other than that we're going to work on still making our offense as fast as we can. Since we are a little bit smaller we're going to try and run everything fast. And since we have the ball control we should be able to do that. We have a lot of hitters available, and we'll just be very dynamic and exciting to watch."

The Redhawks completed workouts over the summer as well as played together on their own. The newcomers joined the team about three weeks ago, according to Yankus, and have fit in quickly.

"They just bring this spark," Baylin said. "They're fresh, they're new, they're excited to be here. They came in with a [good] work ethic already. We didn't have to instill in them what we believe here; they already bought into our program and what we believe here, so I think it was a lot easier. We have a lot of open and honest communication on our team. We have a lot of silly personalities, and they all just click together."

Junior middle blocker Taylor Masterson noted the new players proved they could handle playing at the collegiate level when they spent time in the gym over the past few weeks, and they've started to understand each other on and off the court.

"I think the team chemistry would be like one of the best things because so far everybody is just getting along. Everybody, like, enjoys being around each other -- like, we're friends both on and off the court -- so I think the chemistry is just [something] that we're going to feed off skill-wise," Masterson said.

Yankus said she'll know if the preseason's a success by how evenly matched her players are against each other.

"We're going to always be breaking up teams into what we think are equal groups, and if it's highly competitive, always that's definitely a plus," Yankus said. "When we start kind of gathering who our starters are, if the second side is still challenging them and making it tough, that's good for us. We want to have a lot of options. I think we're going to have a really deep bench this year and a lot of people to contribute, so that's going to be huge."

The Redhawks will open their season at the Saint Louis tournament Aug. 29.