Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 13 No. 1 | August 2020

inside.hokiesports.com 31 volleyball SEASON PREVIEW Nearly everyone understands the phrase “flying blind,” which means a person feels his or her way through a task almost by guesswork. Marci Byers certainly knows the feeling, and if the volleyball season takes place—nothing is certain during a pandemic—she fully expects to coach that way this season with the Virginia Tech volleyball team. Virginia Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock tabbed Byers to be the head coach of the Hokies in January after her long and successful 12-season stint at nearby Radford University, where she led the Highlanders to more than 200 wins, two Big South titles, and two NCAA tournament berths. Byers replaced Jill Wilson at Tech after Wilson resigned following a three-year tenure in which she went 35-57 overall, 13-43 in the ACC. Unfortunately, the pandemic wiped out the Hokies’ spring season after one match. She and her staff had been on the court with the full squad for all of 23 days at the time of this interview—all in the spring. So outside of her players’ names, she really knew little about her 2020 team. “I don’t know,” she laughed when asked what type of team she would have this season. “A willing team. That’s the only thing that I know of right now. Could potentially be a little scrappy. Twenty-three days wasn’t a ton for me to be able to see that. I do know that I want my teams to be a little blue collar and hard-working, so I know for sure we’re going to try to instill that, but outside of that, I wish I had a better answer, but I don’t.” Tech actually returns most of the key pieces from last season’s squad that went 11-20, 4-14 in league play. Hopefully, under Byers’ leadership, those key pieces mesh with a couple of graduate transfers and a group of freshmen for a successful season. The Hokies lacked an all-conference player in 2019, but certainly possess two players with all-conference ability in libero Logan Mosley and setter Talyn Jackson. Jackson, a junior, finished her sophomore season with more than 1,000 assists and ranked seventh in the ACC in assists per set (8.84), while Mosley set a Tech freshman record with 507 digs. Mosley earned a tryout with Team USA this past spring and played well, and Byers expects her—with that national team experience—to be one of the team’s leaders this fall. “She’s one that’s been able to do that,” Byers said. “I know she broke a single-season record, and that’s what we’ve been talking about with some of these 21 and 22s [recruiting classes of 2021 and 2022] that we’re recruiting. We want you to come in and leave a name for yourself. When Logan graduates, she’s definitely going to leave an impact on the program, so she’s definitely one [a leader] for sure, moving forward.” Tech also returns both Marisa Cerchio and Kaity Smith, two veteran outside hitters, and middle blockers Anabel Zier and Kai Young. Zier, a local product from Blacksburg, enjoyed a nice freshman campaign, playing in all 31 matches. Byers added two graduate transfers in Natasha Vipond, who actually played basketball at Lafayette, and Ashley Homan, who played the past two seasons at Alabama. Despite not knowing a lot about her team, Byers liked what she saw from the Hokies in their lone spring exhibition—a four-set victory over James Madison. She also liked what she saw in a couple of intrasquad scrimmages. “I think the kids actually saw some change [in the spring] and saw it when we scrimmaged as well,” she said. “We were able to beat them [JMU] in four, and we got to some points in the match where, in the past, we might have folded a little bit. It was like, ‘No, we’re still in control.’ “We have to be a little bit better with our mindset. They were kind of able to do that. I think they felt good about what they did there just as a team. It was only a little bit of a change, but I do think the 22-23 days we had in the spring, they were able to see a little bit of a change, which was good.” Expectations certainly need to be modest with this program, which is coming off a fourth straight losing season. Byers needs time to mold this group, and more importantly, to secure talent with future recruiting classes. She has proven that she knows how to bring talent to the New River Valley and now gets added resources from Tech to use to her advantage. In the meantime, her 2020 squad wants to prove doubters wrong, and individual offseason workouts reveal a group of players with a lot of motivation. “I think they work really hard,” Byers said. “I think they’ve latched on to everything we’ve tried to give them, as far as training. As a new staff, our terminology is going to be different. Everything that we give them is going to be different, with flow and everything, but I do think they’re working really hard to do the things that we ask, and you can’t really ask for much more than that.” EDITOR’S NOTE : As of Aug. 20, the ACC was committed to playing the fall sports of volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s cross country. Developments related to the COVID-19 pandemic since this issue went to the printer were happening daily, and they may or may not have change the ACC’s decision between the print date and the time that the customer received this issue. A lot of experienced players return, and the Hokies hope that leads to wins under a new head coach by Jimmy Robertson TECH VOLLEYBALL SEARCHING FOR RETURN TO SUCCESS LOGAN MOSLEY