AWC volleyball team focused on the little things

Source: The Sun, Yuma, Ariz.迷你倉Aug. 28--As powerful up front as the Arizona Western volleyball team was, and for as long of a playoff run they made last year, coach Jason Smith still felt the team made too many mistakes.He doesn't expect that to be an issue in 2013."We gave a lot of free points," Smith said. "But Christmas was last year."The season gets underway tonight at home against Chandler-Gilbert, the first game since a 22-25, 25-22, 26-24, 25-18 loss to Redlands in the District C Championship in Oklahoma, the longest Matador playoff run since 1999."We have a lot of great expectations we didn't make last year," said Amber Graham, who was the Region I MVP with 15 kills and 14 digs against Eastern Arizona in the championship match. "We always think so above and beyond. We wanted to meet our goal of the national tournament. This year we have a list of bigger and better things we want to accomplish that we didn't last year."Players from a year ago are gone, and instead the Matadors are loaded with ball-control specialists. Smith said he likes the trade-off."It doesn't mean we can't make it higher, it just means ... we don't have the one hitter that's going to carry us to the next level," Smith said. "We weren't ever very efficient last year. We were effective without being efficient."If you can move the ball around fast, it's always easier to get kills," he said. "Last year, we had big arms but we didn't move the ball around the court well. The passing is very good this year, the serving is very good this year."Smith said h新蒲崗迷你倉's been impressed with libero Jocelyn Rodriguez. The middle and outsides are still crowded, so much so that Smith wouldn't even confirm Graham had locked up a starting spot.In his fourth year back as AWC coach, Smith said his team is different than last year; not nearly as big but potentially just as good."There's definitely the capability of that," Smith said. "We're still finding out how bad we want to do that. If you really know your strengths and weaknesses, and you're willing to accept them, you have a lot of opportunities. Last year's team accepted their strengths but not their weaknesses. This year, we're definitely a work in progress. I believe Central and Eastern are going to be better this year, but we can be better and still not make it."Sashiko Heredia, who Smith said was a setter on the junior Mexican national team, said that passing can more than make up for the lack of a power hitter."If we pass okay, the hitters are going to be good," Heredia said. "If we don't pass, it's going to be hard for the hitters to do everything else."Smith said he expects another long run, although said it won't be easy with conference teams like Eastern improving this offseason."We can't hit our way out of trouble, we don't have that capability," Smith said. "We probably can't block our way into fast points. ... We'll win a lot of long rallies because we have a lot of good volleyball players."Copyright: ___ (c)2013 The Sun (Yuma, Ariz.) Visit The Sun (Yuma, Ariz.) at .yumasun.com Distributed by MCT Information Servicesmini storage