Ben Stroud Team Quotations

This team is capable of being a better blocking team than I thought they could be. That's an area we need to improve, because those are quick, easy points. Those are game separators. Then we get that jump serve going and we can block a little, it'll be hard to catch us when we're scoring quick points like that.

I think North Idaho and Salt Lake will be the teams to beat, along with ourselves. So we'll get a look at them.

I think we're a little overconfident, to tell you the truth. They think they're pretty good -- which they are -- but they have to understand that they're a young team and they have a lot of room to grow. We have to keep growing if we want to get where we want to be -- in that national championship.

Still, the key is in the passing and setting ourselves up. If we can do that consistently, and with our jump serve, you can look up and it's 10-10, and the next time you look up, it's 18-10. We serve a couple aces, block a couple balls, and all of a sudden, we get away from teams so fast and put a lot of pressure on them.

It's possible. It's very possible. I think this team will get better and better and better, and I don't think the teams we'll be playing against will be able to make those kind of leaps, because we're just that much more talented.

I think they'd kind of gotten in the mode where they were just stepping on the court and playing. They weren't thinking. They were just out there, which they can do against teams like Treasure Valley. They just go play and win. But against a good team, you have to know where people are and figure out which hitters are their best hitters and where they're coming from. When you have to take something away, then it's a different ball game.

I think the Snow match has potential to be tough. If their football team is there in the stands like they are sometimes, the stands are really close to the floor, and things can get a little bit hairy that way. So I hope it's like that. I hope we do have an atmosphere like that, because we'll probably see something like that at nationals.

Well, really what I hope to see is us compete really hard. This is a team of people that are used to winning a lot of matches. A lot of them have won state championships and are used to winning, so I just hope they come out and compete as hard as they can and get something going.

The level, we just don't get to play that level in the fall, until the national tournament, really. And it's fun. The kids look forward to playing that and it raises their level a lot. The kids really get a lot out of that. I think our team really grows in the spring.