Grizzlies using summer as launching pad into fall

There is no denying that the last several months have been difficult. From a volleyball perspective, after showing steady progress from 2017 to 2018, and again from 2018 to 2019, Montana took a step back during its abbreviated, Big Sky-only schedule this past spring.

There are caveats, to be sure. The team was playing in the spring, opposed to its traditional fall schedule. There was no preseason with non-conference matches, and even the Big Sky format was severely altered. Teams played in masks, under COVID-19 precautions, and Montana is still a young team trying to find its identity.

According to an NCAA report in February, 43 percent of student-athletes nationally noted academic worries this spring, 31 percent had COVID-19 health concerns, and depression or anxiety symptoms increased among student-athletes by 150 percent.

There was a lot affecting student-athletes nationwide, but Montana's two-win season – which featured three five-set losses – still stings for head coach Allison Lawrence and her student-athletes.

Instead of focusing on the negatives, however, she chooses to see the positive. And for her, one of those was that this was the shortest offseason in Griz volleyball history.

"It feels really good to be moving into a new season shortly after our spring COVID season," Lawrence said days before the start of preseason camp. "We didn't achieve what we wanted to in the spring, and we went through some hardships that we are really eager to get past, so getting back into the gym and getting to compete again, and not having to wait nine months, feels really good.

"It gets us back into a forward-thinking mindset, and really moving on."

Learn from the spring. Make changes. And put it behind you.

There is still plenty to do in order to turn things around on the court. Montana qualified for the Big Sky tournament in back-to-back seasons in 2017 and 2018 — something that hadn't been done in Missoula since 2013 and 2014, and only three times in the past two decades — and the Grizzlies aren't shy about their goals of getting back to the postseason.

More than that, Lawrence would like to see her team continue to build off the growth it was making prior to the spring.

"There are parts of last spring that taught us things that we will use every day moving forward," she said. "The difference between who we are now and who we were four years ago, it's not even recognizable. What was so heartbreaking about moments of the spring is that the progress we had shown, and the difference that our players could feel, it didn't always show up in results."

The encouraging part is that she is seeing change beneath the surface, and she's trusting that the foundational and cultural changes being established will soon turn into results.

A year after starting three or more freshmen in every match, Montana again heavily relied on its underclassmen in the spring. To get so much experience for that group of youngsters, in a COVID year no less, was vital, and should pay off this year and in the future.

Carly Anderson, for example, is now an established setter. She may just be a sophomore, less than a year removed from moving to Missoula from Canada, but she has 16 starts under her belt, and showed that she is a true leader, ranking fourth in the Big Sky for assists and leading all setters for kills and ranking second for blocks.

But there's also the fact that Montana will still be young.

Anderson is just a sophomore. Montana's top-two attackers from the spring are no longer here, and another budding star, Madi Chuhlantseff and her 47 blocks (second on the team) and 94 kills (fourth), will be out for the season after suffering a knee injury in the final match of the spring season.

But Lawrence again chooses to focus on the positives – and there are plenty.

Open doors allowed Montana to bring in six newcomers — three freshmen and three junior-college transfers. The thought is that the freshmen can be part of long-term change, while the transfers provide some immediate experience and stability. Many will compete right away, and several, according to Lawrence, bring a type of competitiveness that, in some ways, has been missing.

Also returning is Sarina Moreno at libero, who is expected to be a four-year starter and finish her career ranked among the program's all-time leaders for digs. She's joined by a small core of players who have been part of the peaks and valleys the last several years, and have helped get Montana to back-to-back conference tournaments.

Peyten Boutwell, who led Montana for blocking and hitting percentage in the spring, elected to return for a super-senior season, and has All-Big Sky potential in the middle.

But mostly, despite a challenging year, Lawrence likes the buy-in from the girls who are on her roster.

"We talk about our culture a lot, and one of the biggest changes I've seen is a commitment to our offseason," she said.

From mid-May, before final exams, until early August, just two and a half weeks prior to first serve, there can be no mandates or contact from the coaching staff. They can't even be in the gym if a player asks them to be.

"Our summer segment is something that the coaches cannot regulate or mandate, and that's one of the big challenges of our sport," Lawrence said.

Now, just three weeks until the season opens, it has been nearly four months since they've been in the gym together. However, while official team practices won't begin until Monday, most of the team has already been together — on a player-led basis — for most of the summer.

That hasn't always been the case.

The team is required to report for team meetings on Sunday, ahead of fitness testing and two-a-day practices Monday. In most years, that meant many student-athletes, including nearly all of the newcomers, would come strolling in over the next few days.

This year, every player is already in Missoula, and many of them have been all summer.

"There is a huge change from year's past," junior attacker Catie Semadeni said. "In the spring, after the season ended, we were talking about how we were excited to rest for a bit and then get going again. We wanted to work hard this summer, knowing that if we wanted to do well in the fall, that started in the summer. It was more of a priority that we all gathered behind."

That's a major reason why Paige Clark, a freshman from Idaho Falls, Idaho, chose to move to Missoula shortly after her high-school graduation. It wasn't required of her, but she was eager to get going.

"It wasn't hard (to move to Missoula early) because I knew I wanted to get started right away," said Clark, who moved to Missoula in mid-June, about two weeks after graduation. "The ways the other girls talked, I just knew I wanted to be there and be part of what they were doing. I wanted to meet the girls and get comfortable around them, and I think it's really paid off."

Even if the team isn't training on the court, they're often doing something away from it, taking advantage of Missoula summers, outdoor recreation and more.

The group hangouts began at a farmers' market early in the summer, which has turned into a regular occurrence to get coffee and explore downtown. There are the regular river floats – a must in Missoula – dinners and hikes across Montana.

Clark spent the summer living with Semadeni and two other teammates, and the biggest off-court bonding has come from group hangouts at their house playing Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo Wii.

"It's become an almost nightly occurrence," Semadeni said, noting they've almost beaten World 8 – the final level. "We learned how to make Rice Krispies, and it gives us fuel to beat levels. When we get stuck, we invite over teammates to come help us and we repay them in Rice Krispies."

The group is preparing for the season on the court and having fun off of it. The hope is that both will pay dividends once the season begins.

"I'm super pumped about the vibe and energy in the locker room," Semadeni said. "As a program, we've been working toward this for so long, and I think we're finally on the cusp of seeing our hard work pay off. We didn't force anyone to come this summer; it was all voluntary and people were so excited to do it. The people who are here want to be here and want to work hard because they know it will pay off."

And that, to Lawrence, is one of the biggest reasons giving her confidence heading into the fall.

"I feel like we're in a better place than we've ever been before, and those are the things that make me really trust our process," she said. "It's not just me pushing the process onto a team, but it's the team doing that process with each other and taking ownership of it."

University of Montana Athletics

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Carly Anderson

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