The MSU volleyball team may have been picked to finish fifth in the conference by the league’s coaches, but the young, talented squad and head coach Chuck Erbe believe they can compete this year and for years to come.
Erbe said the Spartans will settle for nothing short of a Big Ten Championship this year, led by Preseason All-Big Ten honoree senior Erin Hartley and a group of energetic, athletic youngsters.
Of the 16 athletes on the squad, 11 are freshmen or sophomores. Still, Erbe is very excited and optimistic about the potential of his volleyball team.
“This is probably the most athletic team we’ve ever had,” Erbe said. “This is a team to be reckoned with.”
Erbe said MSU has one of the best freshman classes to come through East Lansing since Val Sterk and Dana Cooke arrived in 1993.
He described the group as a no-name class, but in a good sense. Only one freshman, Brooke Langston, was listed as one of the top 50 recruits in the nation, but all are good in their own right.
Freshmen Kim Schram and Michelle Kopka are competing for the starting outside hitter position and bring energy and competitiveness to the team.
Kopka, who grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, where volleyball isn’t a very popular sport, knows she’s in a position to be an everyday starter.
“There really is no pressure, I just want to learn and improve so much,” she said. “It’s so different here. I have more of an opportunity to learn more.”
Kopka said having leaders like Hartley and co-captains Lisa Ashton and Nikki Colson will help her and the other freshmen mature.
“We can learn from the veterans on the team about what to do and what not to do from the mistakes they made,” she said. “We are in it together - we just have to stick with each other.”
Colson, a sophomore setter, was voted a team captain in only her second season, which is a new feat, Erbe said.
“That just shows the respect that the players have for her,” he said.
Colson said it’s important to help the freshmen out, because they will play an important role on the team.
“It’s really important to be patient with them. This is a big adjustment,” Colson said. “Every minute they are in the gym, we have to push them to a limit they have never been pushed (to) before.”
She said the team has set a bunch of little goals as well as larger goals, which include a Big Ten Championship and advancing further into the NCAA Tournament.
“The Big Ten is one of the most competitive volleyball conferences in the nation,” Colson said. “These girls have great personalities, and we have the same purpose and the same goals.
“(Outside hitter) Emmy Miller said it best at the team meeting - ‘no matter what happens every single game, as long as we have the same commitment and keep holding each other up and working for the same goals, everything is going to be fine.’”
