A bit of luck resides within every championship team. It always has. It always will. This does not take away from the hard work, determination, execution, and everything else that goes into winning a championship, but it only adds to the mystique of it. Nobody knows this better than NCAA All-American setter Savannah Wedemeyer.
Two years ago, Wedemeyer and the Point Loma women’s volleyball team were on top of the world. They won an ever-elusive National Championship, an honor very few collegiate student-athletes will ever be able to claim. With an NCCAA Championship under their belt, and not a single starter graduating, the expectations for the team were extremely high coming into the 2014 season. Unfortunately, whatever luck they may have had the year previous seemed to leave as quickly as it had come.
Injuries struck early and often for the Sea Lions last season. First, it was senior middle blocker mcKensey Wise. Then junior right side hitter Cayleen Harty. And, finally, all-conference outside hitter Kelli LeClair. “We were just unlucky last year,” head coach Jonathan Scott said. “It happens, and it is not an excuse. But to lose three likely starters for the better part of the season was not easy.”
Last year, early tournament losses and a feeling of entitlement plagued the Sea Lions. “We came in sort of expecting it was going to be handed to us,” Savannah recalled. “It was not until our second tournament when it seemed as if nothing could go right that we finally figured out we still had to earn it every bit as much as we did the year before. After we won (the NCCAA Championship), we had a target on our backs from the start of the season. I am not sure if we understood that completely.”
This season, however, the Sea Lions boast an extremely talented recruiting class and it seems as if expectations have never been higher. The intensity at practices has reached new heights, and it seems as if there is a collective competition on the practice floor that has not been there before, an almost palpable feeling of electricity. But if the electricity and potential of the team is not harnessed to its fullest capability then the Sea Lions may be once again wondering what if as opposed to what is. And that is where Wedemeyer’s most important role resides.
Wedemeyer, without question, has proven what she can do as a player. Last season alone she was named the PacWest conference Setter of the Year, an NCAA All-American, a PacWest conference first team selection, and first team AVCA All-West Region. She also led the conference in aces in per set and assists per set. But it is what she can do as a leader that will propel this team to their ultimate destination: Division II National Champions.
“I have to understand each of my teammates strengths and weaknesses. Some people respond well to hard criticism, and others crumble beneath it. One is not better than the other, but I need to understand what a player responds to. My role is to get each player to play her very best,” Wedemeyer explained. But it goes deeper than that.
After witnessing what happened to last year’s team, Wedemeyer has made it clear she will not tolerate anyone on the team functioning as anything but one unit, focused on one collective goal. “I told the girls that we are all focused on the same thing, but we are only going to be able to achieve our goal if we are all willing to work together and push each other every practice,” she explained. “It is funny because all we ever heard about last season was how we were coming back as the exact same team, but Jon (coach Jonathan Scott) made clear to us that just because all of the starters were the same it was not the same team at all. It was a completely different dynamic. And this season will be a new season as well.”
Part of the puzzle for Wedemeyer is figuring out how it all fits together on the court. However, her role stretches even further.
Last year, the team had a single focus: win a Division II National Championship. The goal has not changed, but the way they are pursuing it has. Both coach Scott and Wedemeyer recalled how there was too heavy of a focus placed on winning regionals, and then nationals. “We did not focus on what we had to do to get to the championship, we were just focusing on what we were going to do once we were there” Scott explained with a whisper of regret in his voice. “Our focus was off; that must change for us to be successful this year.
Wedemeyer echoed coach Scott’s thoughts, “Last year, we thought it was going to be handed to us. We had to learn the hard way that we had to work for it like we did the year before. This led us to come up with a team motto for last year: Next play.”
Next play. The idea, she continued on, is that it is not about whether the last play was the greatest hit of your life or the worst error in the world. It is all about the next play, focusing on what needs to be done to be successful for what is occurring in that moment, and that moment alone. Simple, yet profound.
As a senior, Wedemeyer knows the reality of next play will come to an end before she knows it. That only motivates her and her other senior teammates to give it their all for one last season. But she also knows the danger of such a strong motivation. “That is why I have been so big on explaining to the team how we are all one unit focusing on one collective goal because, as a senior, I know how easy it will be to play for an award or for myself because it is my last year. If we want to win, we have to work together, as a team,” Wedmeyer concluded.
When asked if he believes Wedemeyer is up to the challenges awaiting her, coach Scott is unequivocal. “Absolutely,” he said with conviction. “I have watched her grow and mature these past four years as both a person and a player. I realized she was a special player, and she needed freedom and trust to fully blossom into the player I knew she could always be. I gave that to her, and she has only earned it more and more. She is definitely ready.”
One season. One team. One goal.
And hopefully a bit of luck.