Volleyball starts strong in Pennsylvania

The Geneseo women’s volleyball team began its season on an extremely high note. In their first tournament, the Knights went 3-0 and swept all three matches at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania on Aug. 29-30.The team defeated Cazenovia College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and host Misericordia University in 3-0 matches across the board to dominate the tournament. Coach Jennifer Salmon believes this is the kind of start the team needs after struggling through the 2013 season and finishing with a 13-19 record. “This [team] is the most committed, the most disciplined, the most positive team I’ve ever had,” Salmon said. “We have the most depth I’ve ever had in each position.” Salmon also cites strong leadership and experience as reasons for the Knights' early success. The Knights roster includes 14 returners, including six juniors and eight sophomores. Salmon said that this past winter, the expected standards of the team were set high. “[We want to establish] who we are going to be this season and show everyone what Geneseo volleyball is all about,” she said. That mentality has been displayed clearly in their matches so far and Salmon is eager to see what is next for her team. While all players contribute to the team’s success, Salmon recognized sophomore middle-blocker Courtney Cleary for her level of improvement and impact on the team. Cleary’s experience cannot be understated. Although she is only a sophomore, she played in 30 of Geneseo’s 32 matches last season. Salmon also praised junior outside-hitter Lizzy Morton for her success at the tournament. Morton had a team-high eight kills and three service aces against RIT and nine kills against Misericordia. Salmon is thrilled with the team’s current level of performance and work ethic. “Everything is falling into place,” she said. The team hopes to continue its success in its farthest tournament from home of the season Friday, Sept. 5 at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.

Despite no postseason, volleyball proud of accomplishments

From beginning to end, the 2013 season wasn’t easy for the Geneseo volleyball team. Being its first season after reinstating the program, head coach Jen Salmon was uncertain if she would fill a roster, let alone of talented student-athletes. And so she began with a squad of 15, who had little to no intercollegiate experience, not yet aware of how enthusiastic, committed and genuine the student-athletes would be.

They’ve come a long way – so much that the Knights appeared to be a completely different team in the final weekend of the 2013 season.

Geneseo earned two wins on Saturday Nov. 2, ending the season on a high note. The team completed the season at 13-19 overall and 2-7 in SUNYAC play.

Regardless of the wins and beyond the numbers, Geneseo’s game play was so different that some coaches approached Salmon and asked, “How did you lose all the matches you lost?”

But what the coaches didn’t know were all the factors that the team faced: losing last season and bringing in a young, inexperienced team.

The Knights approached the Oct. 30 match against Nazareth College with a different mindset that “let them free,” Salmon said. “It gave them the ability to play for the love of the game, to play for fun, so their true colors showed.”

That positive energy continued through Saturday when Geneseo consequently swept Alfred University and claimed a 3-2 victory over St. John Fisher College later that day.

It all clicked that final weekend – the “right time,” Salmon said.

“All of those things we’ve worked on all season, skill wise, combinations and consistency and executing, everything just fell into place,” she said.

“I saw them do things that I haven’t seen them do all season,” she said, exposing their true capability, talent, “who [they] really are.”

But how? Hard work and heart.

And seeing that, Salmon said, is a better ending to the inaugural season than a playoff berth.

Volleyball goes 1-2 in round-robin tournament

While a postseason is out of sight for the Geneseo volleyball team, the 2013 season proved to be a valuable learning lesson. The Knights began the season as an inexperienced squad with a team nearly full of all first-years. As head coach Jen Salmon noted, the young team was unconfident and a “tense, mentally weak team” at first, but developed into a tougher, stronger, more confident team.

That character showed against conference opponents on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26 in the final weekend of SUNYAC pool play. Entering the weekend 1-5 in SUNYAC, Geneseo faced SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Plattsburgh in a round-robin tournament. All three teams stood ahead of the Knights in conference play.

The Knights went 1-2 in the tournament, beating Oneonta before losing to Fredonia and Plattsburgh, both by a score of 3-1.

Although Geneseo’s 2-7 final conference record bested SUNY Brockport’s 0-9, it wasn’t enough to qualify for the SUNYAC tournament. The top six teams at the conclusion of conference play begin playoffs on Nov. 8. top-seeded and undefeated SUNY New Paltz will host the tournament.

“We could have done better,” Salmon said. “But I don’t think anyone is devastated or really upset about how we finished. I do think that, overall, it was a positive finish.”

After a year that was dedicated to learning and transitioning into the restored program, Salmon said she hopes to build off of the new foundation, especially heading into the spring nontraditional offseason.

During the offseason, Salmon plans on providing one-on-one training in addition to sessions for specific positions. The team will return to hone basic skills and break bad habits. In previous years, Salmon said, from one fall to the next, there’s a “drastic difference” in improvement. None of the 15 Knights are graduating, so Geneseo potentially could have a full returning squad in fall 2014.

But first, the team is focusing on the culmination of the season: its final two matches. At this point, it’s about closing the season playing for pride, Salmon said.

The Knights will face two nonconference competitors, Alfred University and St. John Fisher College, on Saturday Nov. 2.

We want to know at the end of these … matches that we’re a much different team than when we started at the beginning of the season,” Salmon said. “We want to be able to see that progress, to see that distinction.”

Editor’s note:

The volleyball team fell to Nazareth College 3-2 on Wednesday Oct. 30. Sophomore Paige Pendleton led the team with 13 kills. 

Last chance to shine for volleyball

Five regular-season matches left, and for the volleyball team, the Knights have nothing to lose. Geneseo went 1-6 in the previous two weeks, snapping a five-game losing streak with their single win over Medaille College on Saturday Oct. 19. Three losses counted toward their 1-5 conference record – pushing the Knights to ninth place in the SUNYAC standings, ahead of SUNY Brockport.

Geneseo didn’t have one singular recurring problem over the seven games; some opponents just overpowered the Knights. For instance, Clarkson Unicersity, was “by far, levels above any team we’ve seen this season,” head coach Jen Salmon said. And against SUNY Oswego, Geneseo couldn’t fight off the Lakers’ discipline and blocking skills.

But consistent inconsistency, as Salmon said, continued to plague the Knights, as it has throughout the season. She hopes that this year of experience will help their court skills as well as their confidence.

Facing Clarkson on Oct. 18 also provided an opportunity for the Knights to see “where Division III volleyball can be,” Salmon said. “I think it kind of motivated them.”

Geneseo bounced back after the loss to Clarkson and defeated Medaille. Not only did the Knights sweep Medaille 3-0, but Salmon also thought the victory “brought that life back to the team,” after the string of losses.

Sophomore Paige Pendleton stood out among the Knights, offensively and defensively, with eight kills, five block assists and five solo blocks. Freshman Tricia Baxley and sophomore Lizzy Morton added nine and six kills, respectively.

Geneseo closes out conference play when the Knights host SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Fredonia and SUNY Plattsburgh on Friday Oct. 25 and Saturday Oct. 26. Both Fredonia and Plattsburgh stand at 4-2 – tied for third place within SUNYAC.

With conference leader SUNY New Paltz undefeated at 6-0, the Knights seem far from a SUNYAC championship or even the bid to the tournament. Salmon, though, remains optimistic about the postseason.

“This is where we can really show who we are and how talented we are,” she said.

The team could squeeze into the playoffs if they go 3-0 – something that is possible, according to Salmon.

And as she pointed out, it’s almost beneficial to be in this position instead: potentially receiving a spot in postseason play with a very successful weekend rather than having to defend their standing within tight conference standings.

“We don’t have anything to lose,” Salmon said. “We can just play.”

Indoors or on sand, volleyball sophomore Holdredge is a winner

Despite similarities in rules, strategy and execution, it’s easy to see why sophomore Sam Holdredge prefers beach volleyball to its indoor counterpart: bare feet, warm sand and a bright sun above. Yet the defensive specialist turned down scholarships at Division I beach volleyball programs in Florida at Stetson University, Florida Gulf Coast University and Webber International University. She also declined a scholarship to Irvine Valley College (Calif.) that participates in the independent Intercollegiate Sand Volleyball Conference.

She ultimately decided to attend Geneseo to stay nearby her Brighton, N.Y. hometown – one of the toughest decisions Holdredge ever made.

“It is very, very fun for me, but at the same time, I take it pretty seriously,” she said. Holdredge plays nearly every day from late May to mid-August while also competing in tournaments each weekend with her partner Amanda Sedore, a junior at Niagara University.

With Geneseo’s spring season and fall preseason surrounding the outdoor season, Holdredge faces a “pretty difficult” transition, she said.

“I guess the indoor game is a lot faster than the beach game that you wouldn’t really think,” she said.

Holdredge and Sedore compete through Hotshots Indoor Beach Volleyball Club in Rochester and New York Outdoor Volleyball Association, which sets up tournaments and provides advanced-level winners with cash prices.

Over last summer alone, Holdredge won seven tournaments, but she couldn’t pocket the $1,000 or so because of NCAA regulations on participating in intercollegiate athletes.

Still, Holdredge’s success has provided her with opportunities across the country. In 2009, she competed in the USA Volleyball Junior Beach Tour in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., the farthest she’s traveled for the sport. She earned a spot on the High Performance (A2) team in 2012 through the USA Volleyball Beach Junior National Team Program that brings together 30 of the world’s best beach volleyball players to train with professionals in California. But Holdredge never made it to the West Coast, as the program conflicted with Geneseo preseason.

Unlike her time on the Geneseo team, Holdredge is on her own without a coach – a trend that’s pretty common among beach volleyball players. But within the beach volleyball community, she isn’t alone. The tight-knit community is one reason why Holdredge took on a referee job at Hotshots a couple years ago. And it’s why, six years later, she has stuck with the sport.

Editor’s Note:

The Knights resume to SUNYAC action on Friday Oct. 11 against host SUNY Potsdam, followed by a doubleheader on Saturday Oct. 12 against SUNY Cortland and SUNY Oswego.

Head coach Jen Salmon up for volleyball challenges

Since graduating from Ithaca College in 2002, Geneseo volleyball head coach Jen Salmon intended on pursuing her love for the sport through coaching. “I knew that it was definitely something I was interested in and I couldn’t imagine life without volleyball, really, that was the motivation,” she said.

She found her first coaching gig at Nazareth College where she received a paid internship through the NCAA to work with student-athlete welfare and coach for the Golden Flyers. She later held assistant coach positions at the University of Rochester and Cornell University.

The Brockport, N.Y. native eventually found her way to Geneseo, an area that she loves. The sixth-year coach, who is celebrating her fifth year of competition, has been challenged from the get-go in her current post.

Salmon succeeded Bouaketh Chanthavisouk, who served as head coach for two years. But Chanthavisouk left the Geneseo program “in shambles,” according to Salmon. The student-athletes weren’t invested, and about half of the team didn’t want to return for her inaugural year, she said.

“They had lost the passion and love for the game, so coming in, that was my number one priority,” Salmon said.

More recent challenges included losing nearly the entire 2012 season due to a hazing incident. Salmon had to rebuild the program this year with all first-year players. Uncertainty and inconsistency has plagued the young team of many freshmen and a handful of returning members who hadn’t played more than four games during their Geneseo careers prior to this season.

Salmon has never been part of a program as either an assistant coach or head coach that experienced this type of situation before. So she’s alone, without mentors who can offer any ideas, recommendations or guidance.

“That has been challenging, but I see it as a good challenge,” Salmon said. “I feel like to overcome the year that we did last year, with losing all of the girls we did, recruiting a very talented class of first-years, having a full roster after not having a season and not having a year of volleyball at Geneseo, I couldn’t be happier with where we are right now.”

Salmon can refer to some of her own knowledge that she gained from obtaining a master’s degree in sports psychology from Ithaca. She said she especially applies it to understand individual student-athletes’ ways for motivation as well as communication and mental training.

While she doesn’t teach or work with teams as a part-time job, she conducts some training and activities with the Knights. She recognizes, though, that it is difficult to act as both the team’s coach and sports psychologist.

Nonetheless, something must be working for Salmon and the Knights, who are showing improvement. Although Geneseo went 1-2 in its first weekend of SUNYAC pool play, Salmon saw a glimpse of the consistency that the team has been aiming for since day one. The Knights fell to Buffalo State College and SUNY New Paltz, both of whom went undefeated in the same weekend.

Looking forward, Salmon isn’t allowing the challenges to restrict her or the Knights. Their eyes remain on a SUNYAC championship.

“I feel like it has the ability of getting there,” she said. “It’s taking a little bit longer than I anticipated, but I feel like we’re so much farther ahead than where we were two years ago.”

Competitive mentality lifts volleyball at Oswego State Fall Classic

The Geneseo volleyball team faced similar competition that SUNYAC pool play offers at the Oswego State Fall Classic. The tournament brought together fellow Division III programs, including SUNYAC competitor SUNY Oswego, as well as Alfred State College, which was provisionally accepted into the NCAA Division II in April.

Even at this point in the season, though, the Knights are still working out some kinks. Like the first few weeks of the season, consistency and mental toughness continued to plague the young squad.

“The positive is we have so much depth and so much talent,” head coach Jen Salmon said. “I think one thing we can also pull from that is the consistency piece … It’s a different person stepping up, finishing and getting the job done [each weekend].”

The Knights opened the tournament with two victories over Elmira State College and Alfred State on Sept. 20. Geneseo finished both teams in straight sets.

The first match on Saturday Sept. 21 was different story, though. Geneseo couldn’t keep up with momentum-driven Oswego, who entered the match 9-6. The Lakers were coming off a four-game win streak, including taking straight sets against Utica College and Alfred State, in addition to persevering through a 3-2 match against Elmira.

Outside hitter junior Meagan Johnson led the Knights with 10 kills and three digs. Other kills came from freshmen Emma Lannon and Tricia Baxley who tallied nine apiece, and classmate Courtney Cleary added eight.

The Knights have another chance to defeat Oswego on Oct. 12 in SUNYAC pool play.

Geneseo rebounded from the loss and emerged victorious in the final game on Saturday against Hilbert College in straight sets. Johnson and Baxley led the offense once again with sophomore Paige Pendleton also adding nine kills.

Johnson and Cleary received All-Tournament honors for their efforts over the weekend. While Johnson was more of an offensive presence, Cleary contributed on defense with three solo blocks and seven block assists over the four games. Johnson and Cleary are two additional volleyball student-athletes who have been honored this year. Not one member of the squad has been honored twice so far – further demonstrating Geneseo’s lack of a core group of consistent players who can be relied upon match after match.

But Salmon has an idea who is among the starting lineup – which players are the most talented and most skilled – but she said that group isn’t always the first group out on the court.

“People are coming in and out, and they’re getting opportunity; if they don’t take advantage of it, someone else is given another opportunity,” she said.

“It’s whoever earns that spot in that moment that is going to be on the court,” Salmon added.

The Knights begin conference play on Friday Sept. 27 with a .500 overall record. Geneseo faces Buffalo State College, SUNY Brockport and SUNY New Paltz over the weekend.

Emma Lannon: volleyball player and world traveler

Freshman Emma Lannon held common standards when searching for a college: academics, athletics and a small town. But she also thought, “How can I get out of Florida?” Growing up in Gainesville, Fla., Lannon said she became sick of hot weather and sunburn. She experienced big-school athletics, living just six blocks from the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. She was used to the nearly 50,000 students that flooded her town year after year.

Lannon was ready for a change. It seemed inevitable that for her next big trip – moving to college – she would end up somewhere besides Florida. Fortunately, for her and her brother, their parents encouraged them to do so.

“My parents always pushed my brother and me to not do the same thing as everyone else, so both of us went really far away for school,” Lannon said.

Nevertheless, the distance from Gainesville, Fla., to Geneseo can’t even compare to Lannon’s previous travels.

Through numerous trips, the 18-year-old has become a world traveler. Lannon most recently toured France, England, Spain, Italy and Malta, but she was first exposed to traveling due to aunts and uncles living in England, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates and at one point, South Africa. When she comes across different cultures, she said she enjoys going beyond what she called “typical tourism” by living in the same communities as citizens.

Lannon is still new to the Geneseo community, but it isn’t her first time in Western New York. She has spent time in her dad’s hometown in Phelps, N.Y. and at her family’s lake house on Keuka Lake.

Lannon first heard of Geneseo through family who raved about Geneseo’s academics. She looked at SUNY schools and a few colleges in Pennsylvania, but Geneseo’s reputation prevailed, convincing Lannon to attend because of its academics. But the volleyball program also played a key factor in her decision-making process.

“This was somewhere I could do both,” she said.

Lannon said her previous volleyball experiences and the program at Geneseo are pretty similar, even despite the lack of upperclassmen. When she was a freshman in high school, there was only one senior on the team.

“I’ve never really had a bunch of seniors playing the role,” she said.

Another freshman, Tricia Baxley, stepped up and received All-Tournament honors at the Ducks Classic on Sept. 13 and 14 at Stevens Institute of Technology. Baxley led the Knights with 44 kills and 10 digs over the weekend. Geneseo defeated Fairleigh-Dickinson University College at Florham, but fell to Stevens and Kean University.

Although Lannon said she enjoys spending time with the volleyball team and settling into Geneseo, she is already considering her next adventure.

She’s never been to Africa, but with family roots in South Africa, she said she hopes to visit the southern coastline next.

“It’s just so, it’s just so different,” Lannon said. “It’s just so cool that they have in that country and everything that they have gone through, they still have such a strong culture.”

Editor’s Note:

The women’s volleyball team faced Keuka College on Wednesday Sept. 18. The Knights lost 3-2.

Volleyball looks to erase memory of last season

The 2013 season couldn’t be any more different for Geneseo’s volleyball team. The Knights are exclusively freshmen – well, from a volleyball perspective. Although the roster lists one junior, eight sophomores and six freshmen, none of the returning members played more than four games during their Geneseo careers. This makes this team by far the youngest that head coach Jen Salmon has ever coached.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this, to be honest,” Salmon said.

And Salmon means that in every aspect of volleyball: the team’s inexperience but also its energetic attitude and unity.

“We, as a whole, are more cohesive on day 12 or day 13, wherever we are, than I have ever been at three months with the program,” she said. “This group of girls … they are committed. They’re very respectful and they’re great people and they genuinely are invested in the direction we’re moving.”

That direction has drastically shifted since the 2012 season that ended abruptly after just four games.

Eleven upperclassmen – eight players on last year’s roster, in addition to three former players who participated in the 2011 season – were arrested for class-A misdemeanors of hazing in the first degree and unlawfully dealing with a child in the first degree.

The Geneseo Police Department’s investigation revealed that hazing reportedly took place at a volleyball gathering. This incident was related to the transport of an 18-year-old student on Sept. 2, 2012 to Noyes Memorial Hospital in Dansville for alcohol poisoning.

All but one defendant didn’t make the 2013 roster; this was a “unified decision” that Salmon made with the athletics department, but as head coach, it was ultimately her decision to select the team, she said.

“It was a very challenging decision because good people can make really bad decisions, but it was a decision that needed to be made because that’s in our past,” Salmon said. “We don’t want to have any of that energy and people that are able to make those decisions in the program.”

While the Knights are taking on the responsibility to change the perception of Geneseo volleyball, they’re also making a name for themselves on the court.

“[It’s] confidently the most talented team, the most skilled team that I’ve had at Geneseo,” Salmon said, who is celebrating her fifth season.

But it was sophomore Samantha Holdredge who shined at the New York University Labor Day Invitational. The Rochester native earned All-Tournament honors, tallying 40 digs and 13 kills over the three games.

The team went 1-2 in its opening weekend, but numbers only say so much.

The Knights defeated Montclair State University (N.J.) in their first regular-season game on Friday Aug. 30. Montclair has appeared in the last seven consecutive New Jersey Athletic Conference playoffs with its most recent conference title in 2007. Geneseo persevered after dropping the first two sets, taking the game in five sets, 22-25, 21-25, 25-23, 25-22, 15-12.

Against even better competition – Spalding University on Friday Aug. 30 and NYU on Saturday Aug. 31 – the Knights fell in three straight sets in both instances. But Salmon wasn’t worried about that, saying, “Even if I didn’t have a team of freshmen, it could’ve been the same outcome.”

Geneseo heads to Rochester for the Nazareth Tournament on Friday Sept. 6 and Saturday Sept. 7, before hosting Keuka College on Sept. 18.

Editor’s note: 

Geneseo defeated Hilbert College on Wednesday Sept. 4. The Knights needed all five sets to gain the victory. Sophomore Erika Dannenfelser led Geneseo with nine kills, three aces and one block.