Click here to look at the 2015 Bronco Volleyball Schedule

Click here to look back at the 2014 Bronco Volleyball Results

Looking for its third NCAA tournament bid in four years, Santa Clara volleyball will open the 2015 season at home Aug. 28 and travel to New Mexico, Texas and Sacramento for preseason tournaments before starting West Coast Conference play at home on Sept. 24 vs. San Diego.  After finishing with a final sand ranking of No. 18 nationally, the women have come indoors for four weeks of training beginning this week. 

SCU sat down with Bronco head coach Jon Wallace to talk about the 2015 schedule, the WCC looking ahead and how training in the spring will help the team win the WCC title in the fall.

SCU: This season you open with a tournament in-conjunction with San Jose State.  You will play Weber State, Rutgers and UC Riverside to start open the 2015 schedule, all at home.

JW: Last year we started with 10 days on the road, so to open up at home will be great for our girls and put them in a nice comfortable environment to compete well. Opening weekends are always the most nerve-wracking for coaches because you never know what you have until you put the jersey's on and keep score against someone else across the net.  It's great to have this moment in the Leavey Center this year.

SCU: The next weekend you travel to New Mexico for a tournament with SMU, Cal State Fullerton and host New Mexico. Santa Clara's last trip to Albuquerque was for an NCAA tournament match in 1993. 

JW: Playing at The Pit is a great environment, lots of fun.  All three teams at New Mexico will play different styles of volleyball.  That will be good for our girls early in the year to have to learn how to make adjustments in a short period of time.  We have a lot of different styles in the WCC and that is why our non-conference schedule features a lot of teams that run unique offenses and defenses. 

SCU: The next weekend you travel to Texas to play both in San Antonio and Austin.  The team will play at UTSA and then travel to the capital of Texas to play Iona and host-Texas.  They have been to six of the last seven Final Fours recently.

JW: Going to Texas on the third weekend will be a very tough trip, as we will begin at UTSA in San Antonio.  UTSA is picked to win their conference this year and will be a very tough match up for us but having a week to prepare for them will really be good for us and we'll be ready.  On Friday we'll play Iona in the morning and then the premier match of the weekend will be against a top 5 Texas team.  They have a rowdy gym environment – it's one of the best in the country. We'll be on the Longhorn Network; it'll be a great environment for our girls to play in, a fun environment, and it should be an exciting match.  It will also be a good test for us to help figure out where we fit in nationally.

SCU: You finish up non-conference play with a trip to another state capital, Sacramento.  At State State Kent State, Nevada and the host Hornets.  This is a good tune-up for your team right before you begin conference play. 

JW:  I like going to Sac State because it's very similar travel as going to Saint Mary's or going to UoP for our team and our routines.  We'll play very tough local competition; manage our travel to get ready for the WCC.

SCU:  In early May, what can you say about the West Coast Conference next year?  BYU played for the National Championship this year; a pleasant surprise for the conference.

JW: It was a great surprise to see BYU make it to the final match.  They were a really good team last year and they played really well at the end of the year.

SCU: Knowing you and then-No. 1 Penn State were the only teams in the regular season to defeat BYU 3-0 in the regular season has to give your team confidence as well as the fact that you have beaten them three straight years in the Leavey Center.

JW: It's a big lift for our girls.  I remember when we made it to the Final Four in 2005 other teams in the WCC got excited because they felt like they could make that run as well.  Our girls for sure feel like they can make that kind of run as well.

SCU:  How deep do you think the conference is?  There is a lot of time between now and the NCAA tournament, but how deep is the conference?

JW: We are coming off a year where we got four teams in the tournament last year; and the conference will be just as strong in 2015.  BYU will be a favorite in the conference.  Great teams coming back will be UoP, Pepperdine and San Diego.  I think the sleeper of our conference next year will be Gonzaga.  They have one of the best players in our conference, Savannah Blinn.  Everyone else is going to be much improved - it'll be a very competitive year.  The hopes are to get five maybe even six teams in the tournament.

SCU: In closing, anything you would like to add during your first week back in the gym indoors after a two and a half month season of sand outdoors? 

JW:  Following another successful sand season, we are just getting back into our spring training for indoor. Training has been going really well.  Our girls are flying around the gym and are in great shape.  It's nice to have the majority of our team back and in the gym training.  We're already starting off on a much more sophisticated level in terms of our training and what we're able to do to incorporate with our team and our girls and that's great to see. 

We have some personnel changing positions.  Players like Katrina Inch are battling for court time – it's fun to see that.  Mary Shepherd is playing really well right now and is going to make huge contributions to our team.  It's a real fun group to work with.  They are very dedicated and motivated for these four weeks of their training.