<\/p>\n
Replacing three Division One signees presents a number of problems\u2014not quick fixes, either, but complicated, nuanced issues a coach would love to have plenty of time to work on. <\/span>Well, that’s not what Susan Pescar and her Wilson Bruins are going to get. <\/span>After just one match played so far this season, they open their league schedule today against the Lakewood Lancers, who (along with Poly) are poised to give Wilson some trouble on their road to Moore League title defense.<\/p>\n “If there’s an Achilles heel to this team,” says Pescar, “It’s going to be inexperience at [a few] positions. <\/span>We have freshman, we have outside hitters at the second position who are brand new at this level.” <\/span>Their most glaring hole is the one left in the middle, a position that happens to match up with Lakewood’s greatest strength. <\/span>Pescar says she has four players who could play there, but we (and she) won’t know if they can hang with the nation’s elite until halfway through the Bruins’ first league match.<\/p>\n Of course, it’s not all new faces\u2014Wilson actually returns five starters from last year’s CIF semifinal team, all of whom look to make key contributions this year. <\/span>Kellie Culbertson had a great summer, with strong performances at the Oxnard Summer Invitational, and her power at the outside hitter position is something the defense-heavy Bruins will need a lot of this year. <\/span>The three-year varsity starter and co-captain certainly seems ready to handle the pressure, and she’s already settled her future by verballing with Tulsa. <\/span><\/p>\n The other key returner, and co-captain\/co-Kellie is Kellie Woolever, who will start at setter for the fourth year of her high school career. <\/span>Woolever will have a lot of new faces to work with at the net, and her ability to make those young players’ lives easier may determine whether or not Wilson can back their strong defense with an offense that can take a match over. <\/span><\/p>\n But the offense really isn’t Wilson’s strength. <\/span>“We’re really good on back row defense,” says Pescar. <\/span>“Our liberos are wonderful.” <\/span>Digging it up will be Candace Nicholson and Jenna McNaney, both three-year varsity starters with a ton of ability and an aggressive style. <\/span>Both will see time at libero, and try to set the tempo on the back line. <\/span>The fifth returning starter is sophomore Rebecca Strehlow, who is probably this team’s biggest x-factor. <\/span>Besides the Kellies, opposing coaches talked more about Strehlow than any other Bruin, and with good reason: she spent part of the summer playing beach volleyball for the USA Volleyball program. <\/span>A setter\/right side phenom, Strehlow also spent the summer growing, as she’s now six-foot tall, which will lend some natural athleticism to her technical ability to hit and block. <\/span>Don’t be surprised to see Strehlow play a number of roles for Wilson this year.<\/p>\n The Bruins will look for help from a number of promising newcomers this year\u2014juniors Emily Nansen and Saelina Dunn will play at the second outside hitter position, and Pescar says she sees a huge upside for both athletes. <\/span>Nansen is also part of the rotation at middle blocker, and could see a lot of time at that spot. <\/span>Junior setter Hollegn Henderson set for the HP\/SCVA team in Italy and Croatia over the Summer, and will add yet another dimension to this team.<\/p>\n It’s clear that for Wilson, who is ranked 4 in CIF (Lakewood is 9th and Poly is 10th) and 11th in the nation by ESPN, the pieces are there\u2014the question is, will they have enough time to figure out how they fit together? <\/span>Like Poly and Lakewood, this team’s potential could carry them well beyond the league crown\u2014but the Bruins won’t look beyond trying to defend that title, even if it’s less likely they’ll go 12-0 this season. <\/span>As Pescar points out, it might be a task just to get that first win this afternoon, with the Lancers’ greatest strength facing off against Wilson’s biggest question mark. <\/span>“If we slow down, or our middles get scared,” she says, “Lakewood will have a field day.” <\/span>On the other hand, if the middles come through and the returners live up to their potential, expect the Wilson question marks to turn into exclamation points in no time flat.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Bruins graduated three players who signed D-1 scholarships\u2014stepping into their shoes are a number of unknowns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}