CHARLESTON, Ill. — It was something Ryan Theis, in all his 17 years as a head coach, needed to think about for the first time — who were his two liberos going to be?
Courtesy of a new NCAA rule, teams can now field two liberos at the same time. This gave Theis, who has four defensive specialists at his disposal — Molly Berezowitz, Adriana Studer, Jadyn Garrison and Samantha Naber — a new kind of flexibility when deciding who he wanted in the off-colored jerseys.
“The thought process behind it. What do we want in the first libero, the second Libero versus a DS role,” Theis said. “There’s a thought process that goes into it, for sure. And you’re not always going to get it right. We make plenty of mistakes as coaches and and we’ll see how the season goes.”
In No. 24 Marquette volleyball’s season-opener sweep over Eastern Illinois, he decided to appoint libero duties to Studer and Berezowitz, while Naber and Garrison were defensive specialists.
“We got four pretty good defensive specialists, and so I think there will be some, throughout the year, who’s playing better when? Who has the best package?” Theis said. “We need a libero to do four or five things, right? They got to pass, they got to dig, they got to secondary set, they got to serve, and they got to cover.
“And of those five things, who’s doing the most well at a certain time? And that can evolve from week one of the season to week 16, so we’ll see as the season progresses.”
Berezowitz, who was the Golden Eagles’ serving specialist last season, played libero for a majority of the match, posting eight digs and four assists.
“I thought Molly did a great job today,” Theis said.
Studer finished with one dig, and Naber had three to go along with four service aces.
There wasn’t a distinct difference between who was on the court when, as both liberos played in serve receive and while Marquette was serving. Theis said that he thinks he will rotate which libero is on the court based on the opponents’ lineup later in the season, but it wasn’t something he thought about against Eastern Illinois.
Friday night was just the season opener for the Golden Eagles. They still have 28 more regular season matches to play, which means 28 more opportunities for Theis to tinker with his libero lineup.
“You’re just gonna have to watch this season and see how this plays out, I’m learning too,” Theis said.
This article was written by Jack Albright. He can be reached at jack.albright@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @JackAlbrightMU.