Video shot and produced by Men's Volleyball Freshman Miles Duncan

River Forest, IL- As the Dominican University women's volleyball team prepares for their first match of the season under Head Coach Cameron Andrew, the team has been putting in hard work during the offseason to prepare them for a NACC Tournament Championship game appearance. 

With the women's volleyball season getting pushed back to the spring this season due to COVID-19, their season is looking a little different than ever before. Instead of having games in the fall, the team was able to get extra reps in to prepare for their condensed season this spring. "Practices have been going great. It's been so much fun to be back in the gym together preparing for the matches after such a long time. We've got such a close-knit and fun group that just being around all of them again has been wonderful," said Coach Andrew. "On top of that, we are starting to play some good ball. It took a few days to knock off the rust, but the last week or so we have really tried to ramp up the intensity to get ourselves physically and mentally ready for the 7th." 

With the Stars being a program that has won 20 matches each of the last two seasons their focus is what lies ahead of them. "A NACC Tournament Championship game appearance is absolutely the overarching goal but we can't think that far ahead. To put ourselves in that position at the end of the year, we first have to take care of what is right in front of us," said Coach Andrew. "Today, that's the practice gym, and Sunday it's point one versus Benedictine University." 

Coming into this season the Stars have a great group of seniors that are ready to make one final statement in their careers. "I really want to highlight all of our seniors in their final season. Gillian Jones, Natalie Jones, Olivia Magnussen, Madi Palmer, Haley Notzen, Emily Mahoney, and Anastasia Labadessa have all given so much to this program. Before they got here, the program was 12-21, and those seniors have gone a collective 60-30 in their time in a Stars uniform, stated Coach Andrew. "They helped reset the stander of what excellence is supposed to look like. I'm so profoundly proud of them, and we are going to send them out on the highest note possible!"

The Stars begin their campaign when they host the Benedictine University Eagles in a double-header match-up with the first game starting at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 7th. The Stars will then return to action Saturday, March 13th at 2:00 p.m. when they travel to Rockford University to take on the Regents.