With a 3-2 loss to No. 14 Stanford, No. 18 Santa Clara wrapped its spring sand season with a 7-7 record. The Broncos posted a 2-6 record vs. ranked teams this year, including defeating Saint Mary's twice.
Reflecting back on the season, Santa Clara head sand coach Aaron Mansfield (AM) sat down earlier this week to talk about what the team learned this spring, how the partner switches later in the season helped and some insight in to what the team can expect as it begins indoor training again next week.
SCU: After the Hermosa Tournament, you switched up some partnerships for the final four dual matches of the spring. Can you talk about the reasons you did that and how the team responded?
AM: Initially, we were unsure of how the switches were going to be received by the team, but they really embraced it. They immediately started working with their new partners and figured out the communication system that they needed to use as well as the strengths and weaknesses of that partner.
SCU: Talk about what a switch like that can mean.
AM: We had a couple girls change defensive responsibilities with blocking and defense. They took on those responsibilities with good intent. And they were all willing to make some changes.
SCU: Your first match was at Cal and you lost 4-1, but you bounced back a couple days later to defeat Saint Mary's 5-0. The Gaels were ranked No. 7 earlier in the year so that was a nice victory for the team.
AM: The match at Cal was the first one after our switches (April 15) and it didn't go as well as we wanted. We were a little disappointed with how we competed and how hard we played.
But to bounce back later and beat Saint Mary's 5-0, at home, was a great testament to our girls resetting their focus, committing to their routine before the match and playing a high level of volleyball. They played one point at a time and one contact at a time.
SCU: It was nice to sweep your series with WCC rival Saint Mary's this year indoors and outdoors. A week later the team closed out the season with matches at No. 13 Pacific and No. 14 Stanford. While the Broncos lost both matches, it sounds like those two matches had a really different feel to both of them.
AM: It wasn't the loss that hurt at Pacific, but it was the way that we competed and the way that we played. We made a lot of errors late in games and we addressed that the next day. They reset their focus before Stanford and I thought we played about as well as we had played all season against Stanford. To have that be the last match of the season and lose 3-2, was obviously disappointing. At the same time, to watch every single team play against Stanford, and to think about where they were the first week of sand training, the progression that was made by each kid and each team was really cool to see for the girls. It's a testament to how hard they've worked for the last two and a half months. Not just on their sand game, but in Sparta. Trusting our routine, trusting our process and really just leaving everything out on the sand at Stanford. They felt very fulfilled and that they got a lot of benefit from playing sand for the last two and a half months.
SCU: Looking back, are you happy you made the switches in the partners the last four matches?
AM: The partner switch up was more do to the fact that we thought a few teams got stagnant and stopped improving at a rate that we needed them to. After making the switches, we felt very confident that it was going to spark a fire in some girls in particular. We feel like that worked.
SCU: You finished with a .500 record. Did the season go as planned? Did you reach your goals?
AM: As far as the results of our season and our record, I'd say we had higher hopes to get some more wins, but overall we were pleased. They dealt with the switch really well. They took on that challenge of playing with someone new, but they also always had the mentality of 'how am I going to get better today, and what do I need to do to get better.' That philosophy never changed.
We are proud of the journey that our girls went on for two and a half months: the improvements that they made mentally and physically, and increasing their work capacity. The way that they practiced on a day-to-day basis was with a lot of focus and a lot of intent on improving their game.
SCU: Next week the team returns to indoor volleyball for five weeks of training to finish out the school year. What will they bring from sand indoors that will help them continue to progress?
AM: The skill work that we are going to do is very different because the task is very different on both sand and indoor. The intent behind these five weeks is to hone back in our fundamentals of passing and serving and some technique work. It's also to reassess and continue to evaluate our offense and defensive systems that we had in place last fall and some tweaks we are going to make.
The speed of the indoor game is a lot faster than sand. The speed of the sand game can be very methodical. And getting used to the speed of indoor usually takes about two weeks. We are going to do a lot of skill development work and we are going to compete a lot, but we are also going to work on tweaking out our offensive and defensive systems.
I can honestly say that I never have been this excited to get in the gym with a team! We are on a really good track to reach our goal of winning conference and these five weeks are going to be huge.
