When Utah volleyball seniors Adrianne Bradley-Drake and McKelle Stilson combined to block the attack of Utah State’s Shauni Fluckiger last Friday night, it was not only the conclusion of the teams’ second-round NCAA matchup, it was a culmination, of sorts, of a journey that has been 12 years in the making.
Because not only did the Stilson/Drake block cap off the Utes’ 30-21, 30-18, 26 30, 30-22 victory over the Aggies?it signaled the next step in the evolution of a team that was once so far down it had to look up to see hell.
Beth Launiere was hired as coach in 1990, and she inherited a team that had gone 1-32 overall the previous season.
Now, in 2001, the Utes have reeled off six straight years of at least 20 wins, qualified for the NCAA Tournament four years running, and now, for the first time ever, made it to the Sweet 16.
It has been a series of progressions the coach herself has a difficult time comprehending, let alone one she believes her athletes can fully grasp.
“I don’t think the players really realize what it’s all about,” Launiere said. “[They’re so accustomed to winning], I’m going to hate the day we take a step backwards.”
Launiere knows that, having made the tournament four straight times now, her players can look at the history books and marvel that a Utah team once won just a single time in 33 matches, but they can’t personally reconcile the concept of not participating in the postseason, not challenging for MWC supremacy and high seeds in the NCAAs the way she can.
Just four years ago, the Utes started their season dreaming of a trip to the national competition. This year, when they came into camp, they let it be known that nothing less than the conference title and a Sweet 16 berth would be acceptable.
Never mind that they’d never accomplished either since the program’s inception in 1975?at least three years before any of the current Ute athletes were born.
Never mind that, five years ago, the thought of beating BYU twice in the same season, or knocking off the top-ranked team in the nation (as they did a year ago against Stanford), or growing dissatisfied with three straight years of reaching the second round at NCAAs would have been more laughable than anything that’s ever come spewing from Dennis Miller’s lips?
This group of Utes is virtually too audacious to know any better.
Not that they can’t try to appreciate the enormity of it all.
“Beth going from [1-32] to the Sweet 16 just says what a great job she’s done with this program,” said Bradley-Drake.
For the most part, Launiere is non-plussed about any praise coming her way, or about the sheer magnitude of her accomplishment, the Lazarus like rising-from-the-dead that has transpired in her dozen years at the helm, preferring instead to say that this is where she eventually expected the team to be all along.
“This hasn’t been a building situation for awhile?we’ve been on a national caliber level for a few years now,” she said. “This is just another step.”
Every once in a while, though, Launiere breaks down the careful, practiced veneer of consummate professionalism and admits that even she is tickled enough about what these Utes of hers have done?just for a moment, at least?to forget about the matchup looming with top-five Stanford later this week and simply appreciate the moment.
“I have to say that when we got to 29 [points in the fourth game vs. USU], I closed my [stat] book, because I knew there was no way we would lose it. I couldn’t keep a smile off my face,” she said. “You put so much pressure on yourself when you keep setting goals, so I’m not going to think about that for a little while. I’m just going to enjoy it.”
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