HERMOSA BEACH, California — There was nothing mistaken with the 2023 season on the Seaside Professional Tour for Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie WilkersonI. Even the stingiest of coaches with the sharpest of eyes would have needed to agree that, actually, it went about in addition to a debut partnership may probably go.
In 10 tournaments on the Seaside Professional Tour, their first yr as a crew, they worst end they turned in was a — gasp — fifth. They received three medals, together with a gold at residence within the Montreal Elite16. Claimed a silver on the Pan American Video games. Eclipsed a top-five place on this planet rankings. All however assured themselves a spot on this summer time’s Paris Olympic Video games.
Their reward?
They scrapped every little thing.
Their coaches, Marcio Sicoli and Fiapo Tenius, “got here in scorching and heavy,” this low season, Humana-Paredes mentioned, laughing on SANDCAST: Seaside Volleyball with Tri Bourne and Travis Mewhirter. “He mentioned ‘We’re throwing out every little thing we did final yr.’ I really feel like we simply have to have our foundations laid and transfer ahead and he goes ‘Sure, however we’re doing nothing the identical.’”
Sicoli is aware of, in addition to any seashore volleyball coach on the planet, what it takes to win a medal on the Olympic Video games. He has Olympic medals of each coloration on his resume, together with a gold on the 2012 London Video games with Misty Could-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings, and, most just lately, bronze in 2016 with Walsh Jennings and April Ross. He knew that if Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson may accomplish all they did in 2023 with the fundamental foundations of a brand new partnership, they might elevate their video games to ranges neither had earlier than skilled.
If solely they trusted him with the easy instruction to desert every little thing that received them that fast success a yr in the past.
“He informed us that we’re including these new issues as a result of you possibly can, and since you’ve proven us you possibly can and since we now have the power to,” Humana-Paredes mentioned. “In the event that they didn’t consider we may, they wouldn’t have requested us to, and we mentioned ‘OK, heck yeah, we’re able to degree up.’ We really feel like we’re one of many prime groups on this planet, we’ve received a pair medals, however we really feel like there’s a lot extra room for us. It was intense.”
That is the half Wilkerson loves most. Twice voted the most effective blocker on this planet, as soon as an Olympian, seven instances a winner of an AVP or Seaside Professional Tour occasion, it isn’t these accolades or positions on a podium she craves. It’s development, and the fixed pushing of the boundaries till she alas finds the perimeter of her preternatural skills.
She has but to seek out them.
Given her absurd trajectory, she’s but to get anyplace shut.
So if her coaches noticed extra in her, one thing left untapped, there was no hesitation from Wilkerson: She needed extra.
“I believe that is what’s value taking part in for is to essentially put your self on the market and check out one thing new and see the way you reply to these moments, good, unhealthy, ugly, regardless of the case is,” the 31-year-old Wilkerson mentioned. “The outcomes develop into rather less distracting once you’re fascinated with ‘I’m so uncomfortable, how am I going to react to this example? That is going to be loopy.’ We don’t have quite a lot of alternatives in our everyday lives to check ourselves. I need to absorb each second of it. That’s the flip aspect of development is being actually snug with that uncertainty and unknown and actually wanting it, craving it, simply to see how far more you possibly can unlock.”
How far more there was to unlock turned instantly evident within the first match of the yr on the Doha Elite16. In 4 straight tournaments to finish the 2023 season that they had completed fifth. To some, it could appear the Canadians had briefly plateaued, hit a ceiling they weren’t meant to interrupt by means of, that the scouting report was in. Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson knew higher. Whereas the end and the factors and the prize cash had been the very same, “each loss was totally different, each fifth was totally different, so although it might have seemed like we had been stagnant, we had been studying,” Humana-Paredes mentioned. “It was simply reframing that, not getting so slowed down in what the outcomes are telling you. It may be actually scary if you happen to don’t really feel such as you’re getting higher.”
In Doha, they discovered themselves within the quarterfinals but once more, matched up with a crew that they had not but overwhelmed in world No. 1 Ana Patricia Silva and Duda Lisboa. They knew they might beat them, after all, simply as they trusted, deep down, that the sweeping modifications that they had made to their defensive system would in the future repay. They simply didn’t know when both would occur. Doha appeared probably the most unlikely of locations.
Heading into the match, they had been nonetheless determining their blocking calls. Wilkerson would sign what she was blocking, and Humana-Paredes would surprise what on this planet she meant. They had been additionally nonetheless recovering from, oh, “just a little automotive accident,” as Humana-Paredes described it, that restricted their coaching within the leadup to the season-opener.
They had been, in a means, kind of winging it.
And it labored.
They stumped Brazil within the quarterfinals and avenged an earlier pool play loss to Latvians Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova within the semifinals. They’d return residence with a silver medal and an inevitable query: If they might accomplish that, whereas not absolutely understanding their very own blocking calls, whereas nonetheless a contact dinged up from a minor automotive accident, what are they honestly able to down the highway?
What are they able to come Paris?
“Our coaches did job establishing the longevity of our aim, so the stress to be good proper now was by no means actually there,” Wilkerson mentioned. “We had been those placing stress as a result of we’re athletes and need to carry out instantly. They stored the attitude very well: ‘Bear in mind what our aim is, keep in mind what that is.’ ”
The aim is, like so many others, a gold medal in Paris later this summer time. The silver in Doha is good. So had been all of the medals that got here earlier than it. Most intriguing to Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson, although, is simply how significantly better they’ll get, each as people and as a crew, by late July.
A solution maybe solely Sicoli and Tenius know.
