Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know much about volleyball, and I’ve only attended a handful of Liberty volleyball matches ever. But what is up with this year’s volleyball team? Right now, they’re sitting at 1-11 on the season. Even worse, they’ve won 4 sets all year. They’ve been swept 3-0 in all but 1 of their losses. Yes they’ve faced some tough competition including 2 ranked opponents in Ohio State and Kentucky, but they’ve also played Utah State, Maryland Baltimore-County, Green Bay, etc.
This is a Lady Flames team steeped in tradition. The Flames have a current streak of 6 consecutive 20 win seasons, and have appeared in the conference title match all 6 of those years. Liberty has won the Big South Conference Tournament championship the past 2 seasons and 4 times in the last 6 years. This year was supposed to be more of the same. The Lady Flames returned 5 starters from last year’s 25-8 squad, and was picked 1st in the Big South Preseason Poll.
Much of the struggles surely have to do with 2012 Big South Player and Freshman of the Year Carolyn Douglas being out of action. Douglas has missed the entire season thus far with a stress fracture and the timetable for her being out is supposedly 4-6 weeks. Douglas was picked to repeat as Big South Player of the Year, and along with Jade Craycraft was supposed to lead the Lady Flames to another 20 win season.
Big South play starts this week with a matchup on Friday against Radford. Hopefully the Lady Flames can get their season back on track, and reach a 7th consecutive conference title match.
