In the middle of a difficult 2014 season, head coach Leonid Yelin admitted that one of his team’s many issues was the lack of a high-caliber libero.

The Orange (6-2) lacked stability at the position with three different players — Dana Crispi, Melina Violas, and Belle Sand — all getting looks at the spot.

Now, that problem has disappeared. With Violas graduated and Crispi having transferred, Sand has increased her level of play and developed a stronghold on the position. She’s played all 30 sets through eight games so far this season and has everybody recognizing her advances.

“It feels good that, you know, Coach has seen my improvements from last year,” Sand said. “And also my teammates, you can tell they feel more comfortable with me on the court.”

Sand has increased her digs per set from 2.68 last year to 3.57 this year, which puts her right outside the Top 10 in the Atlantic Coast Conference in that statistic.

Redshirt senior outside hitter Nicolette Serratore has enjoyed having a reliable presence in the back row.

“She’s just a lot more stable this year with everything she’s doing, and it’s really great to be able to trust her as a libero and kind of let her take balls from us so that we can focus on hitting,” Serratore said.

At Mabel-Canton (Minnesota) High School, Sand, who stands at 5-foot-6, was an outside hitter. She recognized that she was too short to continue playing the position and decided to become a libero, a position that she had always wanted to play anyway.

After walking on to the team, Sand had to learn an entirely new position at a much higher level of play.

“Going from high school to this level is a huge leap. I mean, balls are hit harder and they’re coming faster at you,” Sand said.

There was a big learning curve for Sand, and she started slowly at the beginning of last season. She eventually received more playing time toward the end of the year. She credits last year’s opportunities, as well as a spring training session that focused heavily on defense, as key reasons for her improvements this season.

“At any position you’ll play, if you play it enough during practice and stuff, you’ll become a lot more comfortable with it,” Sand said. “And like last year, last year I was getting used to the position and just this year, it feels way more comfortable then it did last year.”

Sand was also quick to heap praise on the rest of her teammates, noting that strong chemistry between the entire back row has helped her — and the team — improve the level of play.

Senior setter Gosia Wlaszczuk has also noticed Sand’s improvements from last season.

“She’s way better than last season. I think she’s way more confident, which she needed, because in the beginning, you know, she was a freshman, and she was competing for her spot with a senior, which might be overwhelming,” said Wlaszczuk.

The Orange will play three games at home this upcoming weekend — its first home matches of the season — before starting ACC play next Friday, Sept. 25th.

Sand knows that in order to maintain her role as the lead libero — and help the team maintain its strong start to the season — she’s going to have to continue to improve.

“As a defensive specialist you just want to be the loudest on the court. You control the back row, you control the defense, like that is your job to do that,” Sand said.

“I just gotta improve on that that and keep getting better everyday.”

Published on September 16, 2015 at 11:20 pm

Contact Tomer: tdlanger@syr.edu | @tomer_langer