UM volleyball young, talented Medley: Bears have potential

In the midst of football season openers, the end of baseball season, the start of school, and all the activities of Labor Day weekend, the University of Maine volleyball team was indoors starting its season.

The Black Bears went .500 (2-2) with five-game wins over Southeast Missouri State and Rhode Island and three-game losses to Penn State University and Colorado University.

The fact hardly anyone noticed doesn’t bother head coach Sue Medley, given the timing of her team’s season-opening home tournament, but she doesn’t expect that to last.

“Right now, the only goal we have is to get better each day,” Medley said. “We had some good crowds. I realize it’s going to take some time for the program to attract interest, but it’s a program that’s growing.”

Maine will be on the road the next two weeks as the Bears play in the Sacred Heart Invitational at Fairfield, Conn., Friday and Saturday before jetting off to Portland, Ore., for the Portland State Invitational Sept. 12 and 13.

Medley is excited about her team and she has good reason to be as it may be one of her most experienced teams while also being one of her youngest.

“We’re pretty young across the board. We don’t start a senior,” said Medley. “Our younger players are getting more and more accomplished and the improvement factor has risen dramatically.”

Maine has just two seniors (outside hitter Randi Olin of Pueblo, Colo., and hitter-setter Alaina Kleparek of Hampton, N.H.), but the overall talent – and maybe more importantly, the team’s upside – is greater.

Medley says that’s because Maine is attracting a higher caliber of accomplished student-athlete to the program. Today’s freshmen have a much more comprehensive volleyball pedigree or resume than those of four years ago when the program began actual competition. As a result, all the freshmen – outside hitter Jody Connacher and setter Shelly Seip from Spokane, Wash.; defensive specialist-outside hitter-setter Justin Chabot of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; middle blocker Shannon Fotter of Fullerton, Calif.; and right side-outside hitter Brooke Truong of Van Nuys, Calif, – are expected not only to log a lot of playing time, but contribute.

“Before I came here five years ago, I’d never had to start a program from scratch and we’ve been young, young, young,” said Medley. “We’re still young, but we’re also better and much deeper.”

All 13 Maine players have already played one game and nine have played 12 or more.

Other key players are junior right side attacker-setter Carmen Gabriel, who leads the team with 50 digs and 48 kills; junior middle blocker Brittany Howe, a Columbia native who’s one of two Mainers on the squad; sophomore middle blocker-outside hitter Leah Guidinger of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan; and sophomore outside hitter Kaili Jordan of Raymore, Saskatchewan.

The other Mainer is Houlton’s Sarah Beasley, a sophomore right-side attacker who is just starting to come into her own after a developmental freshman year. Beasley’s a rarity given her high school had no organized volleyball team.

“It’s unusual to see a girl with that background make a Division I program, but she got a crash course last year,” Medley said. “I watched her compete in basketball and where she’s from, they have a spring intramural league, so I saw her play in a one-day tournament.”

What Medley saw from the 5-foot-10 Beasley impressed her enough to recruit her.