Sydney Mossman
Student Sports Media
As the new semester has begun, there are a slew of new faces on campus. One of these being the new Head Women’s Volleyball Coach Lisa Lechtenberg.
Over break, Lechtenberg accepted the position, replacing long-time Head Coach Rick Younger. As the semester approached, she took that time to call each player individually and introduce herself over the phone.
“Entering this semester with a new coach we hadn’t met yet was kind of nerve-wracking, but also exciting,” freshman Claudia Hess said. “I’m very happy she called us before we got here, but I remember being concerned when Christmas break began. We couldn’t help, but wonder who would be hired, and all the girls were questioning whether or not we would have a spring season and what was going to happen.”
Weeks have progressed and Lechtenberg has taken the time to get settled into her new position. Along with this, the selection has been made for an new assistant coach.
“Each week has gotten better,” Lechtenberg said. “This last week has probably been the best because I was finally able to gather the girls together and meet everyone as a team. Of course getting Coach Tessa Cosby hired was a huge bonus. Now I am really looking forward to this next week when we can finally get into the gym.”
As we enter the fourth week of the semester, first day jitters have passed, and it is time for business. Spring season has arrived, and it is now time to begin training for the upcoming fall. Spring training, while it will be physically taxing to the team, will also include a factor of adaptation as they will acclimate themselves with two new coaches.
“In our individual meetings, I told each player that we will start slow,” Lechtenberg said. “Of course some things will be different, probably a lot of things. We will start with the basics and build from there. Individual practices this spring will be the ideal time to make individual improvements. Then when we get into team training, we will be able to incorporate our team defense and team offense.”
Spring season will be sort of a precursor to the upcoming fall. This is a great time to make advancements that will benefit the team in the season ahead.
“I hope to see development and improvement individually within each player, and then, of course, by the end of April, we want to be playing our best ball as a team,” Lechtenberg said.
Improvement is a trend in expectations for this spring. The Butler volleyball team had one of their best finishes in conference last season as they ended third place in the Jayhawk Conference Tournament. With new faces joining the program, the hope is to push even further beyond that. Time is in the hands of the team as they have this spring season to develop and get acquainted with the new leaders of the program.
“I’m happy this change happened in the spring time because this way we will have all of training and not a lot of games to be focused on right away,” Hess said. “Whereas if this would have happened over the summer, it would have been even more nerve-wracking because then we would have gone straight into season. This way we can kind of ease into it better.”
Positive outlooks are apparent in both the new coaches and players. Goals are set high, and the team is giddy with anticipation in achieving them to prepare for the upcoming fall season.
“I’m looking forward to the individual training she has scheduled,” Hess said. “That’s something sort of new to us because we weren’t given that opportunity in the fall. I think Coach Lechtenberg is going to do a lot of good things with this program just based off of the few times that we have talked to her. She seems very excited, and we are too so it will be good.”
Lechtenberg is already planning ahead for not only the future of the program, but the futures of each player.
