By River Mitchell
@rivermitchell27
On January 12th, the Springfield College men’s volleyball team will open up their regular season against Concordia College in Irvine, Calif..
The Pride hope to build off the domination and success they saw last season where they had an overall record of 23-5, making it to the NCAA playoffs before losing to Southern Virginia. Much to their liking, the Pride are heading into the season with the same core of guys. The Pride have only two players that graduated from the program, with Jarret Anderson being the big name leaving the program.
“We’ll definitely miss his arm and his serve and everything he did for us, especially as a senior,” said sophomore Dylan Mulvaney, who was named a unanimous pre-season Division III All-American on Dec. 8. “He led a really young group of guys and taught us a lot of things. We’re totally going to miss him both on and off the court.”
Anderson dominated last season for the Pride, collecting 359 kills and averaging an ace per set. However, with the small senior class graduating from the team and a young roster, the team looks like they can be on the rise.
“It’s still a really young roster,” said Pride head coach Charlie Sullivan. “We’re just trying to build experiences, give [them] situation knowledge, and get our guys to a level where they’re playing a good championship level volleyball.”
Even though Anderson has left some very big shoes to fill, sophomore Evan Costley is excited for the opportunity that it provides for other members on the team to step up and deliver.
“It’ll definitely be different without him for sure because he was such a big impact on our team,” Costley said. “But it just gives everyone else an opportunity to step up and really have a more well-rounded team.”
The team also has a noticeable first-year class joining the team this season, who have quickly acclimated to the collegiate level.
“Our freshmen have been working hard,” Costley said. “[They’ve been] really making us work in practice [and] getting good reps.”
Coming into the season, the Pride’s main goal is to play championship-level volleyball all year, while playing to the best of their ability on every serve.
“I think the goal and the expectation is always to simply play your best and put your best self out there,” Mulvaney said. “Whether that means not making the playoffs or winning a national championship, that result is not necessarily what we are looking for. We’re just trying to become the best version of ourselves and play national championship level volleyball.”
In the semester so far, Sullivan is excited by the unparalleled growth he has seen. Because of this, he has confidence in his team to play the level of volleyball he knows they’re capable of.
“I think the growth is going to be significant with this team, because they’ve gotten so much better already, and to see how far we’re going to go is going to be a pretty fun journey,” Sullivan said. “We always look at growth in our potential as just playing a national championship level volleyball.”
Photo courtesy of Springfield Athletics.