Call Chris Green a believer.
At the reins of the only OUA women’s volleyball team without a win this season, the LU coach is confident the team can turn around its fortunes after the Christmas break.
Not just turn things around, he said Tuesday, but run the table and possibly make the playoffs.
That’s confidence.
“We want to go 8-0 in the second half. We want to use all this experience in the first half,” Green said, noting things look a little easier in the post-holiday run.
“We’re looking at taking each game and really attacking the way we need to attack. And I think we’re going to do that.”
Breanne Hilhorst, the team’s athlete of the month for November, said the 0-10 slate isn’t anywhere near where the Thunderwolves want to be at this stage of the season, but there are plenty of positives to take out of the opening half.
“We’re a young team and we’re improving immensely. We’re showing a lot of potential … but it’s setting up for a great year,” she said. “I think after Christmas we’re going to turn things around. We’ve got 10 games out of the way and we’ve learned so much from them.
“We’ve lost in three and we’ve lost in five. Losing in five is huge. Some of those games almost felt like walking away with a win. We just need to build off that and turn things around and win that fifth set, hopefully we’ll win.”
Transforming the work ethic from practice to game-time is what will bring the Wolves success in the second half, said Hilhorst, a native of Killarney, Man.
“We just need to close out. We need to be stronger, we need to shut the game down once we’re ahead,” she said.
Green, looking at the men’s basketball program as a role model, a team that in 2006-07 finished a dismal 1-21, but is now the third ranked squad in the nation, said he’s in Year 3 of his rebuilding program, a process he figured would take five or six years to complete.
A season-ending shoulder injury to star Vanessa Chorkaway, didn’t help the team’s progress, nor did a decision by a prized recruit to take a different academic route, he added.
It’s not easy building a solid team in Thunder Bay, Green admitted, though it’s not impossible.
“It takes tons and tons of reps where you get to the point where you can succeed,” Green said. “So it’s maintaining the athletes coming in and getting them to be here for four or five years so that by the time they’re in third or fourth year, they’re benefiting from that.
“We’re getting that now. My first couple of years, we took a really hard look at everyone who was here. And instead of just cleaning house, we tried to put some confidence in those people to see if we can some stuff out of them. And we did that.”
Case in point is Michelle Cournoyer, a fifth-year player who struggled early in her career, but patience has paid off.
“She’s turned into one of the top blockers in the OUA. She just every year happens to get around younger kids, not more experienced kids,” said Green, who added it’s rare for a high school senior to be able to step in and compete at the OUA level.
The Wolves have not won more than four games in a single season since 2005-06, when they posted a 7-12 regular-season mark. They’ve had three straight three-win seasons and gone a combined 15-80 since 2006-07.
