The Humber women’s volleyball team finished the 2023-2024 season as one of the top teams in the country, but already have their sights set on more next year.
Head coach Chris Wilkins said despite winning Ontario College Athletic Association (OCAA) gold, and finishing fourth in the national championship, there’s motivation from the team to be better.
“We know that we can compete with any team in the country and we know that we can win,” he said.
A major obstacle the team faced at Nationals was losing Erika Dodd, an All-Canadian player and Humber Female Athlete of the Year, to injury.
But despite that, Wilkins said he felt the team did well at competing, and their success despite Dodd’s injury showed their depth, something not every team has.
“I think you look at any other team in the league and if they were to lose their arguably best player, their All-Canadian, they probably don’t even make playoffs,” he said. “For us, it was just another tribute to how deep we are.”
At the end of the season, Wilkins said they will lose some key players to graduation.
“We lose some pieces, through graduation, some real good leaders, some real good people,” he said.
But, along with bringing back Dodd, as well as other key players from this season, Wilkins is already recruiting players to join the program.
Kopinak said that recruiting has already started, and will keep going throughout the off-season.
“I fully expect they’re doing a lot of recruiting,” he said.
Wilkins said that the recruiting class coming in is promising, partly due to the success of the program in the last two decades.
“When you win as much as we do, you end up getting a lot of really good, talented players that want to come and be a part of the program,” he said. “So I’m really excited about the recruiting class that we have coming in.”
With the hopes to get better for next year, Wilkins and the team are already working with the Humber Athletic Department to improve for next season.
Associate Director for Athletics and Recreation Michael Kopinak said that the athletic department has lots of resources for the athletes to use in the off-season.
“Our high-performance center is open, our therapy office department is open so, if they live local, then they can use our high-performance center and we can help monitor them and ensure that they’re fit for coming into the season,” Kopinak said.
Along with their off-season program, Wilkins said he encourages the players to get away from volleyball.
He said it helps them come back ready to play the sport.
“I encourage them to sort of step away from the game as well, they don’t want to do too much,” he said. “Go do other sports, play some baseball, go swimming, do all those kinds of things so that when you come back in September, you’re hungry to play the sport you love.”
Kopinak said he is looking forward to next year, and wouldn’t be shocked if they make a run at the national championship.