DAVIS, Calif. — It's been 522 days since the UC Davis women's volleyball team has been on the court for a competition. A total of 12,528 hours since the Aggies were battling Tulsa in the first round of the National Invitational Volleyball Championship. Counting down the 751,680 minutes since facing an opponent other than themselves.
UC Davis excitedly opens its spring schedule on the road in the Southern California this weekend, facing Big West Conference rival UC Irvine in an exhibition on Sunday (May 9) at Noon at the Bren Events Center.
The match will be streamed live on Big West TV.
"To have competition to prepare for has been an absolute blessing," Head Coach
Dan Conners said. "It is incredibly difficult to stay motivated when there is nothing on the schedule horizon. The last few weeks of training have been great and the team has been focused and energized. After such a long amount of time between competition, the team has been buzzing with excitement. We are ready to go."
Sunday's contest marks the first of three spring road competitions for the Aggies, who travel to California's Central Coast for a pair of matches against Cal Poly (May 21) and UC Santa Barbara (May 22) on back-to-back days. Both of those contests are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
Although the matches don't count in the record books, it's a milestone for UC Davis, which returns to the court for the first time since wrapping up the 2019 campaign with its third consecutive winning season under Head Coach
Dan Conners. The Aggies finished 17-13 overall and 9-7 in the always difficult Big West, ending the year in a tie for fourth in the league and capping the season off with a trip to the postseason for the first time as a Division I program — and the first of any kind since 1996.
UC Davis' 17 wins that year were the most since 2012, while the nine conference victories were the most for the Aggies since 2015.
Although last season was lost due to the pandemic, UC Davis' roster is anything but, scheduled to return 10 letter winners off that 2019 squad, including three of the four Aggies who earned All-Big West honors that season.
"Our returning players have been just incredible," Conners said. "They have shown tremendous resilience in the face of getting our season postponed, then canceled. They have done an incredible job supporting each other, being there for each other and pushing each other to continue improving through the many unknowns of the past year."
The group is led by all-league first teamer
Mahalia White, who battled back from Stage 4 Hodgkins Lymphoma to average 3.06 kills per set — good for eighth in the Big West — and post 14 total double-digit kill performances.
Fellow first-team selection
Josephine Ough was one of the league's best at the net, ranking second in the conference with a .386 hitting percentage (which also ranked third on the school's single-season list) and fifth in blocks per set (1.08), including a season-high of 10 twice in the latter category against Cal Poly and Long Beach State. Her 103 total blocks were the most by an Aggie since Kelechi Ohiri finished with 106 in 2017 and became only the seventh UC Davis player in the Division I era to reach 100 blocks for a season.
All-Big West honorable mention selection
Jane Seslar rounds out the group of honorees after ranking second in the league in assists per set (9.84), while her 1,102 assists were the most in the Big West and the most by an Aggie since Jenny Woolway's 1,201 in 2013.
Sunday's match at UC Irvine also marks the debuts of four freshmen who were scheduled to make their collegiate debuts in 2020 before those hopes were derailed.
Amara Aimufua (Woodland Hills, Calif. / Marymount HS '20),
Megan Lenn (Daly City, Calif. / Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep '20),
Casi Newman (San Clemente, Calif. / San Juan Hills HS '20), and
Olivia Utterback (Plainfield, Ind. / Plainfield HS '20), have had plenty of time to acclimate themselves into the Aggies' culture, and are primed for their first taste of competition since their respective senior prep seasons were also cut short due to the pandemic.
"Our freshmen have assimilated to our team and the team culture seamlessly," Conners said. "They have been working and grinding to catch up with the speed of the college game and their efforts have not gone unrecognized. They will all get significant minutes this weekend."
ABOUT UC DAVIS
Centrally located between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, over 700 student-athletes across 25 teams enjoy an unrivaled undergraduate experience at the fifth-ranked public school in the country.
Ranked annually in the nation's top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility, UC Davis and its innovative Aggie EVO System helps student-athletes develop passions, connect with a comprehensive network of alums and industry leaders, gain real-world experience and thrive as a young professional following a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school.
