Monmouth volleyball continues good play

By: Dustin Looney
Sports Editor

Monmouth College’s volleyball team has jumped out to an impressive 9-3 start to the season and they hope to continue their success when they start Midwest Conference play on Sept. 21.

The Scots have high expectations for this year, as the veteran team has four seniors on their squad, all of whom earned varsity letters last year.

“We’ve got some good leadership from our seniors but we just want to keep getting better everyday,” Monmouth’s head coach Kari Shimmin said. “The seniors have high expectations; we’ve all got high expectations.”

Although the team’s 9-3 record looks good on paper, the Scots feel they still have improvements to make on the court.

Commenting on their start to the season, senior Kendra James said: “It feels pretty good, but I hate to say that some of the games (that we lost) we should have won. Last season we were 9-2 at the beginning of the season, and then we ended up a little above .500. We’re kind of trying to get away from that this year, so hopefully we can keep progressing.”

James has personally had a dominating start to the season, leading the team on and off the court. She was recently named MWC Performer of the Week for her efforts.

Shimmin was also not overly optimistic about the team’s start and she knows the true test lies ahead of them in conference play.

“We’re playing good volleyball, but we’ve played a few teams that were lower than our caliber, so I think that helps in our record,” Shimmin said. “But I think there’s always improvement; everyone can improve individually. As a team we’ve changed up our defense a little bit and I think that has helped us, so we’re working on that.”

The last game the Scots played was on Sept. 18 against Lincoln Christian College in Lincoln, Ill. The Scots played well enough to beat Lincoln in three games, 30-25, 30-24 and 30-19. James, who plays middle hitter, led the team with 14 kills on a tremendous hitting percentage of .565.

Fellow senior Ashley Yeast recorded eight kills for the Scots, while junior Crystal Myers led the team in digs, recording 22. Other players who had a notable impact for Monmouth included senior Colleen Wilkin, juniors Tanesha Hughes and Amanda Boonstra, sophomore Alexis Keller and freshman Alyson Schroeter.

Monmouth kicks off conference play with an away match against Ripon College on Friday, Sept. 18. Ripon defeated Monmouth in three games last year, so the Scots will have a tough opponent to start conference. They will then travel to Waukesha, Wis., where they will play another conference match against Carroll College.

Although they are starting against two solid opponents, the Scots are poised to make an impact on the MWC this season.

“It’s mostly mental, I think. We need to take care of it, we know we can, but as we’ve seen before, we’ve lost to Augustana horribly and we just can’t play like that in our conference,” James said.

The next home match for the Scots is on Sept. 28, when they host another conference rival, Lawrence University.