BSU Women’s Volleyball Looks to Improve on 2023 Campaign

The Bemidji State women’s volleyball team returns to the court this fall coming off their most successful season in 15 years, thanks to a 6-6 start through their first 12 games. They plan to build on that success in 2024, with the goal of being the first Beavers squad to make the NSIC Tournament since 2005.

BSU comes into this year with an even mix of returners and freshman at nine apiece. While some on the outside might still tab the team as re-building, the Beavs are ready to buck that label.

“It’s really exciting. I mean, I think our goal here is just to try and carry over a lot of our tendencies … like work ethic and stuff like that that we had last year,” said senior OH and captain Ashley Crowl. “We have a really good core group coming back and some really dedicated freshmen from what we’ve seen so far. So, just going to try and push a lot of those really close games that we had into wins.”

Crowl continued, “There’s a lot of learning for sure, but I would say in my time coming in so far, this is by far been the most connected group right away that knows what they’re doing, is ready to work. So we’re excited about that.”

“Last year, we’re like, we’re just going to come out, just play as hard as we can. And we started off really hot and just kind of try to continue that,” explained senior pin/MB Lauren Sitter. “We’re just going to take a lot of the stuff that we learned from last year and try to – even the games that we lost, try to take what we learned from those games and practice a lot of what maybe went wrong last year, and try to build off of that and win more games.”

BSU begins their season in a little patch of paradise in the Pacific Ocean, traveling to Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii to compete in the De Luz Chevrolet Hawai’i Fall Volleyball Challenge. They’re slated to play UH Hilo in the first match on September 5th at 6 p.m.