The Sacramento State women’s volleyball team is looking to improve after a 10-23 campaign last fall.

With several of the team’s key players returning for another season, the Hornets will have a roster full of experienced players in 2009. The team played well toward the end of the regular season, knocking off first place Portland State to qualify for the Big Sky Conference Tournament. However, the effort was not enough to continue the team’s run of six consecutive Big Sky Conference Volleyball Tournament championships. In the quarterfinal round of the tournament, the Hornets were ousted by Northern Colorado, 3-1. Head coach Reuben Volta is optimistic that the team will be much improved with a year of experience under its belt.

“I think (the season) ended pretty successfully with us making the conference tournament based on how slow we got started. But we were really, really young last year. We obviously got off to a rough start. But I was really happy how we ended up beating basically the first place team (Portland State) in the last week to make it into the conference tournament,” Volta said.

The team recently finished its spring practice sessions. Typically, spring practice is a time for players to sharpen their individual skills and work on conditioning. The Hornets were able to assemble the whole time for the practice sessions, a luxury the team did not have a year ago when only five players would be available on some occasions. During the off season, the team has been working hard to improve on attacking on the offensive side.

“Our strengths are going to be our quickness and our ball control. We sort of changed the offense to make it faster. So I think our quickness is going to help a lot,” Volta said.

“One of the biggest things (we lacked) was experience on the court that we didn’t have last season because we were so young. A lot of the freshmen got to play last year which is great. I think we just needed to work on our chemistry on the court. I think we really improved that this spring. We got a lot used to playing with each other,” said senior Melissa Melcher, a top reserve for the Hornets last season.

Last season, the team was scheduled to play the majority of its games on the road, which made it difficult for such a young team. In the fall, the team is scheduled to play the majority of the games at home, which should be to the Hornets advantage.

The Hornets have been successful on the recruiting trail, where they were able to sign three talented high school players in Janelle Currey, Hannah Hettinga, and Sydney Kordic. With these young players in the mix, the Hornets will be loaded with talent next season.

Michael Mital can be reached at [email protected].