Gabriel Leads Huskies Through First Steps

SEATTLE — Leslie Gabriel has seen twenty-two prior opening days as a coach in the Husky gym, but today was the first one where she got to set the tone on day one. Washington officially got its 2023 volleyball season underway with morning and afternoon practice sessions today in the Marv Harshman Gym at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
 
“I woke up excited,” said Gabriel. “I really like this group that we have. They’re good people, they work hard and they want to be great. It’s fun being in the gym with girls like that. I was excited to get into the gym and see where we’re at. We have seven returners and six new faces so I wanted to see how these two groups come together and today was a day where we had to learn a lot and relearn some of our routines.”
 
Along with seven returners, the Huskies have three true freshmen (Kierstyn Barton, Brooke Huard, Katy Wessels) and three senior transfers (Kayce Litzau, May Pertofsky, Grace Zilbert). The team now has just two-and-a-half weeks before the first match of the season on Aug. 25 against UTEP in Louisiana.
 
After reviewing some stretching and warm-up routines with Strength Coach Chris Dresher, the Dawgs ran through some passing and serving drills, played some 3-on-3 short court, and then rolled into some drills with the hitters working on their approaches, and setters and liberos practicing their setting placement. Practice ended with some 6-on-6 competitions.
 
Freshman middle blocker Katy Wessels talked about the differences today from what she came from as a prep standout in Idaho.
 
“It’s much more fast,” said Wessels. “As a freshman you don’t know what you’re doing, and everyone’s cheering and yelling but everyone’s helping you out. So it was a very good experience and a very good first day. Everyone is so kind and so helpful.
 

 
After day one, Wessels thinks tomorrow she will “Warm-up more, take longer to stretch. Just be louder in the gym, I felt pretty quiet today.”
 
“I thought the freshmen did a really good job,” said Gabriel. “All we can ask of them is to go hard, and be willing to try new things, and they were willing and ready to go.”