Texas Longhorns 2023 Volleyball Reconstruction Preview
After the Texas Longhorns volleyball program ended last season victorious with a national championship trophy held above their heads, expectations for the upcoming year are even higher for an already established roster.
However, with the loss of key components to the team such as former outside hitter and national player of the year Logan Eggleston, Texas head coach Jerritt Elliott had some major shoes to fill.
Luckily, Minnesota transfer and outside hitter Jenna Wenaas was brought to Texas to take some weight off of the loss of Eggleston. For the first time on Saturday during the Orange and White scrimmage match, Wenaas enjoyed a different view in Gregory Gym than she is typically used to.
“I definitely love playing here when I'm on the team here versus coming here as a visitor,” said Wenaas, a native of Frisco. “Obviously, I have not played in Greg as many times as everyone else, so it's good for me to kind of get back in this atmosphere. It was a lot of fun.”
Another key component to Texas' 28-1 season last year was setter Saige Ka'aha'aina-Torres who modeled consistency at the setter position for the Longhorns all season long. Now with her departure to play professional volleyball, freshman setter Ella Swindle will be stepping up to the plate.
“Ella is a stud,” Wenaas said. “I'm super impressed with her ability to communicate with us as a younger freshman. All of our hitters are pretty much juniors and up, so I'm just impressed with her ability to communicate with us and tell us when we're doing something wrong and to ask us for things she needs and, in reverse, she takes it really well from us. So not only is she a good player, but she just knows how to communicate and be a good teammate.”
The Longhorns officially begin their season on Aug. 25 with an opener at Long Beach State in California. Elliott seemed impressed with his team's performance in the scrimmage.
“For the fourth day of practice, I thought we looked pretty smooth,” Elliott said. “Today showed that we have a lot of good volleyball players and we are making some really good decisions early on with the experience that we have on the floor. And we've got some depth. That's really nice to see.”
You can follow Tori Garcia on Twitter @ToriCGarcia
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