Sports > August 27, 2003

By Adam Alterman

Contributing Reporter

With five starters returning to this year’s squad, the Wake Forest women’s volleyball team believes that they can and must improve on last year’s 14-18 overall record and 6-10 ACC mark.

The 2003 ACC volleyball preseason coaches poll was released Aug. 21 with Wake Forest picked sixth. Even though last season the team posted a sub-.500 record, this year’s squad feels slighted with a low ACC ranking.

“With five returning starters and a very deep team, our whole team believes we should be ranked higher than sixth,” junior middle blocker Kim Stern said. Stern is also one of the three team captains, along with seniors Jessica Hauff and Valerie Rydberg.

“Being ranked sixth this preseason is just a great way to get us motivated to work even harder everyday to prove them wrong,” sophomore Christy Williams said.

Joining the returning five is sophomore setter Erin Borhart. The addition of Borhart to the starting lineup will allow the Deacs to speed up their offensive attack this season.

New additions to the Demon Deacons include a freshman trio of Jenna Doane, Lauren Peterson and Natasha Schaefer. Baker has been impressed with these three talented players, who have already been pushing many of the returning players throughout the preseason.

“As they continue to grow this season, all three will definitely be contending for playing time,” Baker said.

There is also a new member to the coaches as Melissa Batie joined the staff in early January. She will be Baker’s second assistant coach.

So far, the team has dedicated themselves to working incredibly hard during the preseason.

“We are very anxious for the season to get started. We are one of the hardest working teams in the ACC, and therefore our season should show all the time and effort we have put in,” Stern said.

Wake Forest begins the 2003 season with the Deacon Invitational, which starts Aug. 29. The Deacons will play host to Kentucky, Tennessee Tech and Southern Methodist University during the two-day tournament.

“We really hope to show the ACC and the school that we’re a great team to support this season,” Williams said.