UI's Beitz setting, sweating

CHAMPAIGN – For the University of Illinois volleyball team, it was spring camp. For Melissa Beitz, it could just as well have been boot camp.

Reveille for the Illini setter was called at 5 a.m., although thankfully an alarm clock took the place of an ear-piercing trumpet.

At 0630 hours – 6:30 a.m. to us civilians – Beitz would report for duty at Huff Hall for an uninterrupted half-hour of instruction from coach Don Hardin and assistant Tarnisha Thompson.

Then, when the rest of her teammates hit the court, Beitz could be found hitting the deck – er, floor – for a series of push-ups when she wasn't otherwise occupied chasing down and setting volleyballs.

"This spring, I'd have to say, was probably the hardest work I've ever done," the 5-foot-8 sophomore said, "especially in the sport, but probably in my whole life."

"She would do upper-body work to the point of exhaustion," Hardin said, "and then have to set immediately afterwards until her setting smoothed out and she got her coordination back. And then we'd do more upper-body work, and then she'd have to set again. Physically and mentally, it was very challenging for her."

From what Hardin has seen from Beitz so far this preseason, the grueling spring regimen is paying dividends. The same player who would sometimes wilt toward the end of lengthy matches last season is now attracting notice for her strength and stamina.

"On Wednesday, we were doing our strength circuit," Hardin said. "We have a new medical trainer this year and she mentioned how impressed she was with Melissa being one of the stronger people on the team. I think that's remarkable considering she was getting just the opposite reviews her freshman year."

Beitz is getting rave reviews, too, for her play on the court.

"She seems a lot more comfortable, a lot more consistent," outside hitter Tracey Marshall said. "All of our patterns are a lot smoother, so we're a lot more comfortable knowing where the ball is going to be."

Said Thompson: "Her technique and her decision-making has improved tenfold."

The seeds of this improvement also were planted in the spring.

As a true freshman last season on a team with no other true setters, Beitz had been thrust cold into the most demanding job on the court. And with first-year coach Hardin necessarily occupied with preparing an entire team for the season – and then for each opponent as they came – the kind of intensive individual tutoring Beitz needed would have to wait.

"Last year we had to work on our serve receive and our offense," Beitz said. "They didn't have the time to take me over in the corner and just train me individually, which is exactly what a setter needs when she comes into a new college program."

But there was time last spring, when Hardin and Thompson dissected Beitz's game and polished her skills. Two areas in particular received much work. In reviewing game tapes from last season, the coaches discovered Beitz's body language was tipping off opposing blockers.

"If we slow down tapes, we can see them all getting a step on where the ball's going to go," Hardin said. "They know in advance where she's going to set it. Now she has a neutral posture that's hard to read. You don't know where she's going to go until just before the ball gets in her hands."

The coaches also adjusted the positioning of Beitz's hands to decrease the spin she was putting on the ball while setting. Instead of the ball possibly veering as it ascends – forcing the hitter to adjust on the run – it now "just hangs up there and then drops down," Thompson said.

Spring camp also provided time for Hardin to install more of his offensive playbook. With so few veterans on last year's team – 10 of the 12 players were freshmen or sophomores – and with a collegiate novice at setter, Hardin kept the attack relatively basic.

"It will be more diverse," he promised, "and not as diverse as it will be with another year of work. We'll be able to keep our opponents off balance quite a bit more than last year."

Last year, it was the Illini who lost their balance, finishing with a 13-15 record. Hardin knows the prospects for improvement rest to a large degree on Beitz's improvement, if only because of the nature of her role.

"She contacts the ball more than anybody else out there," Hardin said. "Where the ball goes depends on her decisions and her confidence."

The word confidence inevitably comes up these days in regard to Beitz.

"She's a lot more confident," outside hitter Mary Coleman said. "She's not afraid to tell people, 'I need a (better) pass, you have to get it up there.'

"Last year, I think she was a lot more timid. If she wasn't getting a pass, she'd put up with it for a while. But now she's a lot more demanding, which is what the setter should be."

Chances are Beitz never will be in-your-face vocal with her teammates. That's not her demeanor. But Beitz says she is ready to assume the kind of leadership duties more in keeping with her status as the quarterback on the court.

"I don't think I took charge enough last year, and I can see that now," the all-stater from Stewardson-Strasburg High School said. "Now when I'm on the court, every player looks at me before every serve. Even if I don't yell at them, I'm giving them a sign for what they're going to hit or I'm adjusting their serve-receive patterns.

"I think they look at me a little more for guidance on the court and they expect me – and I expect myself – to come up with solutions if there's a problem, like a veteran setter would."

That thought, of Beitz as a veteran setter, brings a broad smile to Hardin's face.

"The fun thing is, we have her for three more years," he said.

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