NCAA Girls
November 29, 2023
After chewing up and spitting out 5 coaches over 15 years, the ladies’s volleyball program at Jap Illinois fell off a cliff in 2019.
The toothless Panthers went 3-26 and 1-15 within the low-major Ohio Valley Convention with an RPI pc rating of 314, placing them within the backside 6.2% of NCAA Division I’s 335 groups.
Into that quagmire stepped Sara Thomas, embracing the problem of flipping the script of futility in her first go on the helm of a school workforce.
Jap Illinois volleyball had recognized painfully little success since its final look within the NCAA Match in 2001. However 4 years after taking over a seemingly hopeless job, Thomas has kicked EIU’s mud of dropping off of her footwear.
Her Panthers gained 28 of their 32 matches this yr, completed first by a three-match margin within the OVC through the common season with a 15-3 report, and roared via the convention event with three consecutive sweeps to earn its automated bid to the NCAA Match.
Awaiting a couple of two-hour drive east from Charleston in West Lafayette, Indiana, is a first-round Thursday date with Marquette of the Large East Convention at Purdue’s Holloway Gymnasium. Typical knowledge may dictate that this probably could be the ultimate chapter in Jap Illinois’ feel-good story, however that will overlook one salient element: Thomas’ Panthers have a sweep of Missouri on their 2023 resume, those self same Tigers out of the SEC who additionally earned an NCAA bid.
Missouri (17-12) has an RPI of 34. Marquette (20-10) was an at-large choice after being the regular-season Large East co-champion with a 16-2 report. The Golden Eagles’ RPI is 25. Marquette coach Ryan Theiss, then just about recent out of faculty, was an assistant at EIU the final time it performed within the NCAA tourney.
Jap Illinois moved as much as 65 within the newest RPI launched this week, however that victory over the tradition-rich Tigers in mid-September ought to stamp the Panthers as reside “undercats” on a impartial flooring. The mixed scores in that match have been 75-56 and Mizzou was held to .110 hitting. Missouri rebounded with a four-set victory within the second of the back-to-backs in Charleston, however the complete margin was solely 10 factors (95-85).
EIU was 10-1 after the weekend set with Missouri concluded its non-conference slate. Additionally bolstering the Panthers’ mojo had been a four-set overcome Illinois of the Large Ten in a mid-August exhibition match at Huff Corridor in Champaign.
Thomas’ upset-minded crew isn’t typical “low-major” small and is blessed with a star gunner with dynamic athleticism and a depraved topspin leap serve in outdoors hitter Giovana Larregui Lopez, the two-time OVC participant of the yr.
“From Day 1 of preseason, we talked about specializing in the preparation: The preparation towards coming to observe, towards your restoration, your wholesome life-style, diet, this drill, this play, actually put the give attention to this second,” Thomas mentioned.
“Staying within the now, not specializing in who’s on the opposite facet, however simply controlling our controllables. That has helped tremendously in preserving the give attention to us. It helped us beat Mizzou and win OVC. Once we upset Missouri, it hit residence: ‘We are able to do that.’ And going into Huff and successful the exhibition boosted our confidence that perhaps we may do one thing extra particular than anybody thought.
“That buy-in shouldn’t be going to vary going into the NCAA Match. We’ll proceed to play our Panther recreation.”
EIU was the one squad from talent-laden Illinois to earn a bid to the 64-team NCAA area.
Program-building begins
As unusual because it may appear, the grim scenario at Jap Illinois didn’t look like a complete black gap to Thomas, who had resurrected the high-school program at her alma mater, Althoff Catholic, in Belleville, Illinois, throughout the Mississippi River from St. Louis. In her ultimate season there, Althoff went 41-1 and gained the 2017 Illinois 3A championship, the state’s second-highest class.
That segued right into a two-year stint as an assistant at Missouri State, the place she had performed collegiately from 2004-07, serving to the Bears to a few NCAA berths and being named Valley defensive participant of the yr as a senior.
“Once I noticed that this EIU job opened up, I used to be like, they’re actually near residence and it’s in my residence state,” Thomas recalled. “It’s surrounded by nice volleyball, from Chicago, to Louisville, Indiana, Missouri. I assumed, man, we may get some actually good native youngsters. In order that’s what sparked my curiosity straight away, the placement and the way good the encircling expertise for recruiting was.”
Then actuality hit. Jap Illinois soccer might need produced guys resembling Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppolo and Sean Payton, however volleyball was a far completely different story.
“I obtained the job and I spotted, OK, there was quite a bit to do,” Thomas mentioned. “I employed Manolo Concepcion (as an assistant), who had been with me for 3 years, till this previous yr. Manolo helped get us to the place we’re. His expertise for coaching was wonderful and he had huge worldwide connections.
“We have been in a position to herald some actually high-level worldwide women, resembling our setter, Catalina Rochaix, from Argentina; our libero, Christina Martinez Mundo, and our nice outdoors hitter, Giovana Larregui Lopez, they’re each from Puerto Rico. These have been very high-caliber athletes. However in bringing all that collectively, arduous choices needed to be made. While you’re going from a one-win or a three-win program, there need to be these troublesome calls.”
The primary mission was to determine the elusive “tradition” that sabotages many groups.
“We needed to actually give attention to the tradition, reframing and reshaping that, simply (the gamers) understanding what arduous work is and what ‘grind’ means year-round,” Thomas mentioned. “The primary yr we obtained via COVID, the subsequent yr we gained 11 video games, the subsequent season 16 and now we’re right here. I by no means may have achieved this with out my earlier employees and the assist of the administration.”
For the report, EIU went 2-14 (enjoying all OVC matches) through the spring COVID season of 2021, took child steps to 11-18 (4-14 OVC) through the fall of 2021 and climbed to 16-16 (10-8 OVC) in 2022.
Concepcion, who had held the highest jobs at Evansville and Western Carolina, moved on to hitch the teaching employees at Washington as an assistant earlier than the 2023 season. However his fingerprints stay on Jap Illinois’ program, and Thomas mentioned she valued his mentorship.
Spreading the wealth
The Panthers positioned 4 gamers on the primary workforce of the All-OVC squad: 5-foot-9 senior Larregui Lopez, sophomore Rochaiz, senior Martinez Mundo and graduate-student reverse Natalie Mitchem. Martinez Mundo was named probably the most useful participant of the OVC Championship, held on EIU’s residence courtroom, after the Panthers swept Arkansas-Little Rock, Southern Indiana and Southeast Missouri State.
A switch from NAIA School of Coastal Georgia after her sophomore yr, Larreagui Lopez cracked 458 kills in 2023 and raised her hitting proportion from .193 as a junior to .304. Her scorching top-spin leap serve produced 67 aces in opposition to solely 86 errors, a more-than-acceptable ratio of 1 to 1.28.
The temptation could be to say that Thomas merely shotgunned her roster with worldwide expertise, however a more in-depth look reveals that the Panthers acquired vital contributions from “locals” that embrace Mitchem from Bolingbrook, a western suburb of Chicago; Kaitlyn Flynn, a 6-foot-2 junior OH from Rockford in northern Illinois; Kate Dean, a 6-3 sophomore center from tiny Tuscola (inhabitants 4,626) in east-central Illinois; and Emily Wilcox, a 6-foot senior center from Fort Wayne in northeast Indiana.
The addition of the 6-2 Mitchem, out of the switch portal from Ball State of the Mid-American Convention (a mid-major league, however a rung up the ladder from the Ohio Valley) supplied the piece of the puzzle that propelled EIU from a .500 workforce to twenty-eight victories.
Mitchem had been a extremely embellished participant (first workforce all-MAC as a junior, second workforce as a senior) for a Cardinals program that earned NCAA bids in 2019, 2021 and 2022. Racking up 400 kills and an attention-grabbing .350 hitting proportion, Mitchem made Flynn (who had been first-team All-OVC as a sophomore) the Panthers’ third choice, creating huge issues for opposing defenses.
Flynn recorded 15 double-digit kill totals in 30 matches. Dean turned a much bigger issue within the center, bettering her hitting proportion from .175 to .341 and her blocks complete from 49 to 61. Within the OVC title match in opposition to SEMO, she ripped eight kills on 11 errorless assaults and chipped in 4 blocks.
The late-season X-factor for Thomas has been Wilcox, the epitome of a “program” child who performed her means into the lineup, changing Julia Stanev, a 6-foot-3 freshman from Italy.
“Emily demonstrates how true persistence pays off,” Thomas mentioned. “Our non-starters do further lifting through the season and our power coach named them the ‘Diesel Group.’ Right here was Emily grinding day by day in observe, going in opposition to our starters, getting stronger to the place her time simply got here slightly bit later within the season. Julia began off actually sturdy, and I’m a coach who’s going to play the participant who’s the most effective at the moment.
“Emily is peaking simply on the proper second. Julia’s nice – she’s 6-3, bodily, a blocking machine – however Emily has simply introduced slightly extra offensive dynamic.”
As could be anticipated, the workforce’s success has translated to extra assist from the scholar physique and the Charleston neighborhood. The OVC ultimate drew 1,612 to on-campus Groninger Enviornment on a Wednesday evening.
“Our neighborhood confirmed up for the OVC championship,” Thomas mentioned. “It was superior. I’m hoping that a few of them come to our NCAA match, which is barely two hours away.”
