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September 13, 2019 - Image 7

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The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Friday, September 13, 2019 — 7

Twenty hours before the
plane
containing
delegates
representing 11 different Big Ten
volleyball teams touched down
on foreign soil, all the players
met up for a brief practice in
Chicago.
There, they spent 45 minutes
familiarizing themselves with
one another before flying to
Japan
on
June
14 for two weeks
for the 2019 Big
Ten
Volleyball
Foreign Tour.
As night fell,
the
players
and staff made
their way to the
airport.
They
trudged through
the
terminals
together
before
taking off, concluding their
brief introduction.
***
When it comes to volleyball,
Mark Rosen’s seen everything.
After 27 years as a head coach,
20 with the Wolverines, Rosen
acquired an array of knowledge,
not just with collegiate teams
but national teams, too.
Even to him, being the head
coach for the Foreign Tour team
was “a very unique experience.”
First slotted as an assistant
coach on staff, Rosen was
promoted to the top position
after former Iowa coach Bond
Shymansky, the orginial head
coach of the Foreign Tour
team, was fired due to NCAA
violations. Assuming his new
position, Rosen had a hunch this
experience
coaching
former
opponents
would be a new
challenge.
“You’re
coaching players
that
you’ve
actually coached
against,
so
that’s
a
weird
dynamic,” Rosen
said.
Rosen
has
seen the scouting
reports on these
players over the seasons, but
building a system around a
ragtag team last minute was a
tall task.
“Some of it was just finding
what players do, what roles go
well,” Rosen said on making
adjustments
from
match
to
match.
“I
didn’t
really
go
into it with really that much
information about the players.
So we were figuring out on the

fly who handles what situations
well, who do we want to put in
certain positional situations.”
***
Natalie
Smith
spent
the
majority of her first two years
at Michigan as a defensive
specialist. There was no need
for a different player to get reps
at libero during career starter
Jenna Lerg’s tenure. But upon
Lerg’s
graduation,
the
spot
opened up, and Smith rose to
the occasion.
During
the
spring
season,
the junior was
the Wolverines’
primary libero,
but even then,
her reps were
limited. There
were just seven
games
over
the course of
the spring, so
the trip to Japan to face high-
caliber teams — collegiate and
professional — proved valuable
for a player getting adjusted to
a new role.
“It
was
a
really
good
opportunity for her,” Rosen said.
“Being a younger libero, trying
to step in and trying to take over
for Jenna, and that role, that’s a
big shoe to fill. I thought it was
a great extra opportunity for
her, another two weeks to play
volleyball, another opportunity
to be in that role.”
The
opportunity
wasn’t
without its challenges, though.
There was only one libero spot
on the Big Ten team, and Penn
State’s Jenna Hampton eyed it
accordingly. In the end, Smith
earned the role and Hampton
became the designated defensive
specialist.
What
stood
out
to
Rosen
was
Smith’s
skill as a first-
touch
passer
and

taking
from
previous
role as defensive
specialist — her
defense.
“She ended up
playing
libero
in pretty much
every match,” Rosen said. “And
(Hampton) played (defensive
specialist) and part of that is
because she passed consistently,
she defended really consistently,
and she played really well.”
***
When the team landed in
Osaka,
Japan,
complications
arose.
When the players and coaches
arrived, they prepared for a

full day of activity — eyeing a
practice at Senri Kinran, a
university in Osaka. They had
their first matchup later that
afternoon and a team dinner
that evening.
But the team couldn’t practice
due to problems with the Senri
Kinran practice facility.
“I think there was a shooting
that was going on there,” Smith
said. “So we ended up going to a
different part of town.
Prioritizing safety, the team
used its practice time, instead,
to explore the city, stopping by
temples and various parts of the
town.
For
Senri
Kinran,
losing
practice for a day was just lost
practice. For the Big Ten team,
it was losing so much more —
they only had a set number of
practices to begin with. After
hours on a plane, moments after
meeting as teammates for the
first time, that practice wasn’t
simply business as usual. It was
a chance to further gauge each
player, form chemistry and just
get into a rhythm.
For a team already struggling
with familiarity, the lack of
practice was a heavy blow.
And it showed the next day
when the two teams faced off.
The Foreign Tour team not only
lost, but lost badly.
“We step on a court against a
college team who really wasn’t
very good,” Rosen said. “And as
I watched them play and warm
up, they weren’t very physical,
they weren’t really that good.”
Not really that good, but good
enough to dominate the Foreign
Tour team and blow it out in a
4-0 sweep? To lose 25-16, 25-15
to a team filled with players no
taller than the shortest player
on the Big Ten team’s end?
But to Rosen, the answer was
simple.
“They were organized and
we weren’t organized, because
we didn’t really have a chance
to organize the team. It was bad
volleyball.”
Added
Smith:
“That
was
disappointing, but also I think
that you can’t become an All-
Star amazing team, ever, in 12
days.”
The next day, the schedule
for the Big Ten team was wake
up, go on a morning sightseeing
session in Osaka, and then
head immediately to the game
with an hour to warm up. On a
normal gameday at Michigan,
the players would have three
to five hours to get into game
mode.
“Here,” Rosen said, “we did it
in 20 minutes.”

Combine the time crunch
with the lack of chemistry and
practice, and the source of the
frustrating result became clear.
“It
was
frustrating
for
everybody,
and
the
players
weren’t trying to play bad,”
Rosen said. “It was nobody’s
fault. It’s just, you’re trying to
organize this group without
any time or any opportunity to
organize it. So I thought that
along with everybody else, it was
really frustrating
that first night,
because we were
looking on, ‘How
is
this
team
losing?’ ”
The
team
concluded its day
in Osaka with the
bruising loss and
traveled to Kyoto
to
repeat
the
cycle, this time
with a new city and a new team,
but a similar result.
Despite
another
three-set
loss, this one felt different to
the team. None of the sets were
a one-sided affair. Instead, the
team strung together three
tightly contested sets and saw
the growing pains beginning to
subside.
“I thought in the second
night, we played another college
team who was a little bit better,”
Rosen said. “And we played
better.
“... We were like, ‘Hey, if we
had played the team we played
last night, we probably would
have won.’ We could see them
progressing.”
***
A
college
team
and
a
professional team are separated
by a lot of things: salaries,
endorsements,
contracts.
But the biggest factor in the
matchup between the Foreign
Tour team and Denso Airybees,
a professional team based in
Nishio, was practice regulation.
As
college
athletes,
the
players and coaches are limited
to 20 practice hours weekly.
As Rosen joked with his team,
“Those guys are probably at 20
hours of training by Tuesday.”
And
with
more
time
to
practice
and
train,
comes
a
higher
level
of
play.
Additionally, the style of play
in Japan is completely different
from the U.S. Whereas in the
U.S., physicality is the name of
the game, speed rules supreme
in Japan. In the matchup, the
differences in style and training
showed.
“They practice a lot, and you
can tell by the way they play,”

Rosen said. “They’re not very
physical. They don’t outphysical
you, they outplay you.”
The end result was another
three-game sweep, but unlike
before, the growth of the Big
Ten team could be seen as the
sets progressed. 25-12, 25-18,
25-19. The more the teams
played, the more adjusted to the
speed the Big Ten players got.
They were playing together
and playing better volleyball.
The next night,
in front of a
crowd of 1,500,
the
Big
Ten
team
played
Denso Airybees
again.
There,
they made its
breakthrough.
“They’re
so
fast,
and
their system is
so
intricate,”
Rosen said. “And a lot of these
players had never seen anything
like that so we had to make some
adjustments on the fly.”
Because the players in Japan
were so much shorter, they ran
their offense faster, forcing
the contact to come around
the chest area — a different
experience for the players who
are used to extending the length
of their arms in hopes of tipping
the ball with fingertips. The
new point of contact and speed
took time to adjust to, but with
a proper game plan, they could
envision the style vividly post
match.
There was no practice time
in between the matches, despite
being on two different days.
There was only a video session,
where the team sat down and
talked about what it had to do.
“Just
speed
comes so fast, you
can’t move very
much,”
Rosen
said. “Once the
ball is set to the
hitter, from set to
hit, we call that
base to read, you
have no time, so
you got to kind of
position yourself
in a way where
you basically just
have to face the action. You
can’t really move into a new
position.”
The
player
that
excelled
in that was none other than
Natalie Smith.
Smith provided support in
more ways than just as a libero,
proving instrumental to the 3-1
win against Denso Airybees.
She stepped up as a leader.

People who have worked with
her say she’s an easy person to
play with. She communicates
well, works hard and connects
easily.
“She can slide into your
team and be pretty comfortable
pretty quickly,” Rosen said.
Once
Smith
acquainted
herself with the team, she took
the next step as a player, taking
a leadership role. As a libero,
she occupied a large part of the
court. However, just as the team
didn’t have any scouting reports
on the opposition, the teams
they faced didn’t have any on
them. So it boiled down to what
the teams saw on the court.
“They see a girl in the other
colored
jersey,
and
they’re
going to assume she’s probably a
pretty good passer,” Rosen said.
“So she really didn’t get tested a
lot, so she was helping the other
players a lot by pushing their
court and making sure she took
more court, to ease them off, to
help them.”
It
was
something
Smith
had seen time and time again.
They avoided her in the service
game, giving her space on the
court. That paid its dividends
in the rematch against Denso
Airybees. From her ball control
to her defense, Smith actively
commanded the first touch and
enabled an efficient offense.
“I thought (Smith) did a
fantastic job of doing that
defensively,”
Rosen
said.
“Because it’s from setter to
hitter, it’s bam bam, and they
had to be really good at making
adjustments, so I thought it was
a great opportunity for her. And
believe me, she’s not going to
ever see anything faster than
what we saw there.”
Picking
up
on
Denso
Airybee’s
tendencies was
the
turning
point
of
the
series.
As
every
point
passed,
every
set
finished,
the
roar
of
the
packed
house in Kyoto
quieted little by
little, until nothing but silence
answered the sound of the
Foreign Team finishing a kill.
Four sets later, 25-22, 25-23,
25-15, 26-24, and the Big Ten
team prevailed, securing its
only victory of the trip.
“They’re all rooting against
you, and then you beat them so
easily,” Smith said. “It’s just so
silent and serene.”

Rosen and Smith: New country, new roles, the road to a win

EVAN AARON/Daily
Michigan coach Mark Rosen was tabbed to coach a group of Big Ten All Stars last summer that also included Michigan’s Natalie Smith on the Big Ten Volleyball Foreign Tour in Japan, where the team went 1-3 against the country’s best teams.

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Editor

Just finding
what players
do, what roles
go well.

I thought that
... it was really
frustrating that
first night.

You’re coaching
players that
you’ve actually
coached against.

(Smith) can
slide into your
team and be
comfortable.

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