Fairfield: “That’s possibly one of many headlines for this workforce. They discovered a approach to win.”

MAAC-champion Fairfield opens NCAA Event play at Thirteenth-seeded Purdue, which completed third within the Massive Ten, on Thursday. Additionally in West Lafayette, Indiana, Ohio Valley-champion Japanese Illinois performs Marquette of the Massive East. The winners play Friday. 

She additionally had a visiting professorship at Wesleyan College in Middletown, Connecticut, that she loved.

Then, final January, Todd Cress and assistant Melissa Batie-Smoose left Fairfield for San Jose State. Fairfield wanted somebody to information the workforce within the interim.

At smaller Division I faculties comparable to Fairfield, the teaching workers usually consists of a head coach and an assistant. So when Cress and Batie-Smoose left, there wasn’t a lot as a grad assistant to shepherd the Stags. It so occurred that Batie-Smoose was acquainted with Somera, who labored together with her husband, Michael, at Johnson & Wales. She approached Somera about presumably stepping in at Fairfield till a everlasting rent may very well be made.

Somera agreed, understanding a take care of Fairfield senior affiliate AD Alison Sexton to return in a few days per week from mid-January till spring break.

“Alongside the best way, I’m speaking with the administration about my observations and what I’m seeing,” Somera mentioned. “And in a kind of conversations, Alison Sexton … form of jokingly says, ‘That sounds an terrible lot like a coach. Are you certain you don’t need to coach this workforce?’

“I used to be form of like, I’m good with what I’m doing.”

However there was one thing about being again within the fitness center. Being across the gamers. Educating.

After some analysis, she came upon Fairfield’s convention matches could be on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Yale, however, performed its Ivy League matches Friday and Saturday nights.

So Somera may have the most effective of each worlds.

She may coach at Fairfield and be round for many of Maile’s matches, and, this season, Yale gained its second consecutive Ivy title, and Maile Somera was named the league’s co-defensive participant of the yr.

“It was form of fascinating as a result of I acquired to attempt Fairfield on,” Somera mentioned. “A number of instances, you are taking a job, and also you don’t actually know what you’re getting. However one of many issues, too, was I acquired a tour of the brand new facility, and I believed, ‘Wow. That is superb, and we will actually recruit some good gamers to this.’ ”

The view from the Fairfield sideline wasn’t unhealthy both. The younger Stags had an amazing season, going 22-6 within the common season and led the Metro Atlantic Athletic Affiliation at 16-2, two video games up on Quinnipiac. After which they beat Quinnipiac within the MAAC Championship last to assert the convention’s automated NCAA bid. Somera turned the primary coach to win the MAAC of their first season since Kris Zeitler led Iona to the 2004 title.

5 gamers – not a senior amongst them – earned all-conference honors: Sophomore exterior hitter Allie Elliott and junior exterior hitter Mikayla Haut have been first workforce, junior setter Blakely Montgomery and sophomore center blocker Maya Walker have been second-team, and freshman proper aspect Mamie Krubally landed on the all-rookie workforce.

Somera was struck by how tight-knit the group was and much more awed on the means senior libero/defensive specialist Kyla Berg saved the Stags organized whereas the teaching state of affairs was in limbo.

Montgomery mentioned the gamers have been equally taken with Somera, and their exercises within the offseason helped them alter shortly after she was employed full time in March.

“That was good for us to form of get to know her and see her teaching model,” mentioned Montgomery, who’s from League Metropolis, Texas, who averaged 7.55 assists per set. “At any time when she did turn out to be our coach, we have been already aware of her, and she or he knew us, so the transition was fairly good.”

Haut agreed.

“I believe we have been actually open to that change … We have been in a position to be very open together with her and form of study from one another. I believe she was excellent about constructing our confidence inside ourselves.

“There’s such a optimistic setting right here that form of lacked earlier than, and that performed an enormous function in not solely my very own however I believe everybody’s function this yr.”

For her half, Somera knew she wasn’t taking on a program with no pedigree. Fairfield lengthy has been a profitable program, so there was no want to return in and re-invent the wheel. This was Fairfield’s Thirteenth convention title.

On the identical time, every thing she and assistant Brendan McGourn have been going to implement was new to this specific group.

“You overlook while you take over a program that everybody is listening to what you’re instructing for the primary time,” Somera mentioned. “And none of us are excellent at studying issues the primary time we hear them.

“So it was loads of repetition, repetition, repetition. And Brendan and I’d be within the workplace like, ‘Rattling it! Are they ever going to get it?’ And, certain sufficient, by the top of the season, it was like, ‘Sure! They acquired it!’ ”

The opposite impediment Somera and the Stags needed to overcome was a skinny roster.

After graduations and transfers, Fairfield was left with seven holdovers and 7 new gamers. Some positions, Somera mentioned, barely have backups. An harm anyplace would current issues. And a kind of transfers was KJ Johnson, who led Fairfield in kill final yr with 385, a whopping 192 greater than her subsequent closest teammate (As an apart, Johnson, who transferred to Texas State as a grad pupil, can also be within the NCAA Event and leads the Bobcats with 377 kills. Her workforce performs SMU within the first spherical).

At one level, Walker and Fairfield’s different center blocker, grad pupil Elle Shult, went by a revolving door of accidents: one went out of the lineup simply as the opposite recovered from an harm and returned. Somera needed to shuffle her rotation at instances and practically had Krubally transfer to the center at one level.

“At instances this yr, it felt like we have been a membership volleyball workforce as a result of our roster was so small,” Somera mentioned.

Via all of it, the Stags didn’t blink. They enter NCAA Event on a seven-match profitable streak, most not too long ago a 26-24, 25-14, 16-25, 25-20 victory over defending MAAC champ Quinnipiac.

And right here’s a outstanding stat: The Stags went 18-4 within the 22 units they performed this season that have been determined by two factors.

“This document, this season may have appeared an entire lot in a different way,” Somera mentioned. “We completed the (MAAC) common season 16-2. That would have very simply been 12-6. Two factors right here, two factors there. That’s possibly one of many headlines for this workforce. They discovered a approach to win.”

Maybe that’s as a result of they fell again on the various intelligent nuggets of knowledge Somera usually dropped on them. Montgomery mentioned the workforce tried to reside out her mantra of taking part in “quick, centered and enjoyable.”

Haut attributed the success to the workforce taking part in with “PB and J.” No, not a secret stash of sandwiches on the Fairfield bench, however “Ardour, bravery and pleasure.”

“These are the three key facets nobody can drive you to have or play with,” mentioned Haut, a state qualifier in observe and subject and — look ahead to it — bowling at her highschool in Monroe, Michigan. “In the event you’re taking part in with all three of these directly, it’s actually exhausting to cease a workforce that’s taking part in with ardour, bravery and pleasure.”

In fact, a little bit expertise helps, and the Stags have a lot. Most of it younger.

Elliott, 5-foot-11 and a 2022 MAAC All-Rookie workforce member, averaged 2.61 kills (hitting .218) and a pair of.56 digs per set throughout the common season. The 6-foot Haut, the 2021 MAAC Rookie of the 12 months, led the workforce with 2.77 kills per set and contributed 1.96 digs per set and 40 whole blocks.

Walker , additionally a former all-rookie workforce member, led the MAAC in hitting proportion (.350). Krubally was sixth within the convention with a .243 hitting proportion and averaged 2.04 kills per set. She additionally had a hand in 49 whole blocks.

Krubally’s addition helped to solidify the Stags’ assault. The uber-athletic product of Lucas, Texas, achieved lofty numbers regardless of coming off a torn ACL. She had surgical procedure in January however assured Somera throughout the recruiting course of that she could be able to go come August. Somera mentioned she would have been ecstatic to have Krubally within the lineup by mid-October.

However, certain sufficient, when Krubally confirmed up on campus for preseason exercises, she was a full go. Not even a brace on her surgically repaired knee. She wanted a little bit time to knock off the rust, however she emerged as a drive. Within the MAAC last in opposition to Quinnipiac, she had 11 kills – hitting .500 with no errors – and added 4 blocks.

“Mamie is superior,” Montgomery mentioned. “She brings a lot power to the court docket, and she or he hits a extremely heavy ball. She’s actually grown into herself, and she or he’s turn out to be much more assured. Now, she’s one in every of our go-tos.”

However none of that offense works with out a stable again line, led by Berg and senior libero/DS Noelle Carey. Berg averages a team-leading 3.79 digs per set, and Carey, who beforehand performed at Arkansas-Little Rock, averages 2.09 digs.

Junior Svenja Rodenbusch, from Germany through Hillsborough (Fla.) Neighborhood School, had a team-high 33 aces, and Elliott had 29.

Rodenbusch additionally ranks fifth on the workforce at 1.56 kills per set.

A Herculean problem awaits the Stags after they play Purdue.

“We simply need to play with none regrets,” she mentioned. “Being fearless is one other factor we discuss, not shying away from it however going at it head on and doing our greatest. We’re simply going to fret about ourselves and play our volleyball, and no matter occurs occurs.”

Added Haut: “I believe the most important factor we’re going to deal with is serving aggressively. If we will get a much bigger workforce out of system, it is going to be a lot simpler on our protection to work round one or two hitters and never having them simply in system and making an attempt to defend all three hitters at a quick tempo.”

No matter what occurs in opposition to Purdue, Somera already can chalk up her first season at Fairfield as a hit. And it seemingly is only the start. Solely three gamers will graduate, so the core of this group will likely be again.

Somera admitted that when she took the job, figuring out the age of the roster, she and McGourn have been this as a two-year venture.

“I believe my expectation as a coach is to at all times have a workforce that provides themselves a possibility to win matches and win titles,” she mentioned. “Did we overachieve? I don’t suppose so. However would it not have been a disappointing season if we hadn’t gained? No.

“I don’t ever say I count on to win. I count on that my workforce goes out and performs in a way … that’s, over the course of a match, to win extra factors than our opponent, extra units than our opponent and, due to this fact, win the match.”