The MSU-Northern volleyball Skylights have not played a competitive match in almost two weeks. In the time between the Ottawa University-Arizona tournament and now, head coach Jerry Wagner has had a chance to look at his numbers and see what his team has gotten better at over the course of the first month of the 2024 campaign.
“We improved in our hitting percentage from our outside hitters, which is a plus, quite significantly (than) the weeks before,” Wagner said. “Statistically over the first nine matches, we are blocking more balls per set, we’re digging more balls more set, and we’re serving the ball tougher.”
“I’ve got a feeling that (the OUAZ Tournament) was an anomaly that we didn’t do a couple of those areas that are becoming strengths of ours better so that we maybe have some different outcomes,” Wagner continued.
The Skylights will now turn the page and as coach Wagner likes to put it, move on from preseason to conference season. Wagner put into more eloquent terms what he meant by that and how the matches become more important from here on out.
“We’re starting the new season. Our preseason is over.” Wagner said. “We’re (0-0). We’re going into the first half of conference (play).”
“We still have all of our goals that we’ve set,” Wagner continued. “We’re fine. Some areas got better and some areas were, I’ll use historic, can hang our hats on, just got away from us a little bit on the road. That’s going to happen.”
“I see us bouncing back and then we’ve made improvements in areas that are going to help us be even that much better of a team,” Wagner said.
The Skylights will travel down to Dillon to take on Montana Western, scheduled for 7pm on Friday night.