While the 2023 Bradley women’s volleyball team showed promise last year, the injury bug took several key players out of the season.
This resulted in the Braves ending the season with a seven-game losing streak. This past week, The Scout sat down with Williams, who had a lot to say about the upcoming season, what she saw from the team this summer and what they took from it overall.
Q: What was the recovery process like this summer for your players?
Williams: Half the team is battling back and trying to recover and get healthy. We have nine new players, and many of them are coming in fresh and learning a lot, so I think the summer was about learning a lot and getting to know each other and some of the ins and outs of Bradley. And when they came in, they were in great shape and I could tell they had put in a lot of time and effort this summer.
Q: What differences have you noticed between this year and last year’s team?
Williams: I think this team is very competitively driven, and they don’t need to be told to be motivated. They are pretty motivated to win and very resilient, too. So you will see a lot of bounce back from this group, but I also think that since a lot of them are new, and they are moldable and eager to learn and want to trust and buy into this process and win.
Q: What was the message to your team heading into training camp?
Williams: I keep telling the girls they must be patient because we have a new team and can’t go from zero to winning a conference championship. We must go brick by brick with some things we need to improve, and with such a competitive group, it’s easy just to see the top thing of what they want. Still, we just need to be patient with breaking some stuff down and getting better at specific things creating new habits, and that’s going to take time, and that could come in the form of winning and being ugly. Or it could come in the form of losing some games early on, but eventually getting better.
Q: Have any returners caught your attention during the offseason?
Williams: I think Corrie Brown, who was set for us last year until about halfway through the season, got injured and had to sit out the rest of the season as a freshman. Now, coming in as a sophomore, she has matured and grown a lot in terms of her perspective of the game and what her job is, so she’s done a great job.
[And] I think Silan Demirkol, a senior this year, has also stepped up to fill a hole in the team. She has always been more of a role player, and with seven seniors leaving last year, I think it was easy for her to say, ‘Where can I support and how do I need to step up?’ I think many returners have done a great job onboarding the newbies and making them feel welcome, while also maintaining the standards we want to hold, accountability-wise.
Q: Are there any freshmen or newcomers that could impact the team this year?
Williams: Three new players are coming in; two of them are transfers, and one is a freshman, so we will require them to have some significant impact and a good amount of playing time. These two are juniors: Iva Popovic and Victoria Oliveira. Both have heavy arms, and we will look for them to score many points. They are both very competitive-driven and used to being the best players on their previous teams.
We will look for that same presence on our team as well. Maria Drapp is an incoming freshman who was a top-50 recruit. She’s a baller and a gamer and will be looked at as one of the team’s quarterbacks along with Corrie Brown. She sees the court very well, and even though she is young, she is engaged and resilient, has that next-ball mentality, and will help the team in close-set situations. Last year, we lost like eight or nine straight fifth sets. With her calmness, I hope tough Maria can bring a lot of stability to the team in some of those crunch-time situations.
Q: In your opinion, is this a redemption year for the team?
Williams: The first year was hard, and I didn’t know the league well our first year, and we were just adapting to the new system. And last year, we started well and felt we were going to be in the top half of the league, but we can’t control knees tearing and the injuries. So I would say this year is twofold: we have the talent that we had last year, but we also feel we have a hunger for this year, and I’m hoping we can put those two things together to help create a great season.
Q: What are your expectations for your group this year?
Williams: Well, I think it’s hard because the last two years have been really difficult because you want to win, and I know we have what it takes to win, and I’m just trying to stay patient and know we know what we can do. Part of me wants redemption because we want to prove ourselves to the other teams that might not think we are good. But at the same time, we want that respect to build foundational pieces and get better at the little things we can control.
