Every May for years, with her season over and recruiting in an NCAA-mandated dead period, Idaho State volleyball coach Sammi Stuart has gone to her family’s ranch in Northern Utah.
It has 16,000 acres, 700 head of cattle and access to a few well-hidden fly-fishing streams, places where Stuart can get away from the stress of being a college volleyball coach — a job that seems like it brings year-round pressure at times.
This year, Stuart’s time away was a little extended — because of the COVID-19 pandemic, she was at the ranch most of the spring, spending time with her mother and two brothers who still live there.
“The biggest part about the ranch for me is, it’s who our family is and what we kind of enjoy doing in our spare time,” Stuart said. “We have access to a couple different fly-fishing hotspots, I’m pretty much the only one who fly fishes, so for me that’s a nice little quiet release where I can turn my phone off and not have to worry about anyone.”
That sense of calmness, of equilibrium, was directly in contrast to the atmosphere at Reed Gym last weekend when Stuart’s Bengals, playing their first match in 425 days, came back to force a fifth set against Montana but then lost it, 15-8.
Playing a back-to-back to start the season, the Bengals evened things out the next day, sweeping Montana on Monday to earn a split in their first Big Sky Conference series.
“I think on Sunday night, when we went five, we were just super excited to play,” Stuart said, “and I think that led to some high moments, and then when it was not so good, some super low moments. And so our goal going from Sunday to Monday was just to be level-headed, make good choices, be simple.”
That will be a point of emphasis this year for Stuart, who has an inexperienced team in her second year as ISU head coach.
The Bengals were 7-23 in 2019 and bring back only 26% of the offense from that team in the form of middle blocker Taylor Meeks and outside hitter Raegan Kunz.
ISU has some other experience returning with libero Mahala Bradburn and setter Andri Dewey, but that’s about it, meaning ISU’s season will probably turn on the development of its younger players.
Ask a college coach in any sport what the biggest difference from high school is, and they’ll probably tell you “the speed of the game.”
Stuart is no different, and that’s where the simplicity comes in for the Bengals.
“That’s the response I keep getting from my new freshmen, is the speed of the game is just a little bit quicker here,” Stuart said. “We talk about making simple choices for our setters, making simple sets, being in-tempo and just a bunch of things that we can control, like simple eye-work when we’re blocking.”
New faces came up big for ISU in the first weekend. JUCO transfers Sadie Gardner, with 13 kills, and Sean Garvin, with 22 assists, led the Bengals in the first match against Montana. Kennedee Tracy, a redshirt freshman, had a team-high 11 kills in the second match.
“Especially our freshmen from last year, they didn’t get to compete at all in the 2019 season, and then COVID happened in 2020 and so this is their first chance in 2021,” Stuart said. “Our freshmen just need a little bit more experience, and once they get that, it’ll be pretty balanced offensively with some depth on our bench that we have.”
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