Aggie Volleyball coach Laurie Corbelli on emerging leaders, early wins

On the victories over Sam Houston State and VCU...

"Well I was really excited for who the team played. They came to really have a great start and played very consistently. We have about four starting returners who set the tone and had been on Reed arena before, where some of our other players have not, mostly freshman. It was nice how they just showed the young ones how we like to start our matches off.

"We had some pretty amazing performances by the MVP of the tournament, Camille Conner, and middle Makena Patterson, who is a freshman, had a wonderful start to her career as well. Our ball-handlers did a wonderful job. They are all returners that have been in the gym a lot working hard."

On organizing practice...

"We like to break each practice into really mindful reps. There are six major skills in volleyball, and that is individual. Then you put them all together for rotations and your team's defensive and offensive systems. We typically will start with a lot of ball touches, so they will either web together with coaches and do running drills or with the players themselves where they can get a good warm up and handle the ball well. It is such a reaction sport. You can't catch the ball or throw the ball, so you have to really be a good ball-handler, putting the ball wherever you need it to go. We find that to be incredibly important.

"We then move into defensive concepts, whether it is individual or team. We go into getting our offensive rhythm and run our plays for about 45 minutes. The last hour is usually 6-on-6, where we do a lot of team drills. You can call them wash drills. It is basically breaking the game down into segments and really working different challenges within those games so they can compete a little bit and get reps in their competition."

On the team's current strengths and weaknesses...

"Well I think our strengths – number one is we are getting better with our serving. We refuse to be the weakest serving team in the league, which I truly believe we have been one of the weaker teams in the past. Our serving is getting better and better. We have discovered new ways that we can chart that. We try to take charts and stats in our practice touches, so that has helped and we have gotten a lot better.

"I think our passing and defense is right there. It is early in the season, so we are really going to try and sharpen those, I think. No doubt, blocking is going to have to improve quickly. Blocking is really where we are new right now, middle and our right side blockers. I would say those are our current strengths and weaknesses right now."

On who is going to emerge as a leader this season...

"I think you will see Kiara McGee lead a lot, number four on our outside. I think you will also see our two captains, Amy Nettles and Gabby Litwin, both in the back-court, lead a lot. They are very vocal and experienced. They are two of our older players. I honestly think we are seeing leadership qualities come out of our younger players, too, some sophomores and freshmen. Luckily in volleyball, in our recruiting system you can find leaders easily. They all like to step up, lead and speak their minds. When it is their time to be a follower, they are good at that too."