Coming off a sixth-straight Sun Belt Conference Championship appearance in the fall, Texas State volleyball has officially wrapped on the 2023 spring season.
 
A tough spring schedule that included a home match with the reigning national champions Texas showed head coach Sean Huiet a lot about how much his team has grown through the adversity. 
 
"We saw leaders emerge," Huiet said. "We saw growth and the maturity. There's still a long way to go, but there was a lot of work put in on that.
 
For Huiet, though, it's not about being good now. It's about setting up a trajectory for growth.
 
"We're not going to be as good now as we're going to be in August," Huiet said. "And in August we're not going to be as good as we are in November. The goal is to get better as we go through this."
 
Associate head coach Keith Anderson enjoyed seeing individual growth from his players.
 
"Spring is sometimes my favorite part because we get to break things down and really start to get a lot better," Anderson said. "We get to work at things that players need individually and then work at our team's specific systems to get everyone on the same page there, too."
 
Individual growth from a young roster is what the coaching staff is looking for, as that will help the team become stronger down the line. Huiet and Anderson are excited about having a young team, though.
 
"Many people will look at our roster and are think we lost [Emily] DeWalt, Janell [Fitzgerald], [Lauren] Teske and [Jillian] Slaughter, so they just expect this to be different," Huiet said. "And we're going to be different, but we have a chance to be even better."
 
The team itself is eager to maintain the expectation of excellence, too. They know Texas State is a strong volleyball school.
 
"It's not a pressure thing," Huiet said. "They know how good Texas State volleyball has been. They know we've won our division six years in a row; they know we've been in the final six years in a row, and they want to maintain that. It's just teaching them all the little things that go into that now."
 
Showing a young team the way to be successful is one of the biggest things that came out of the spring season, in Anderson's eyes.
 
"This spring that we got to work on was helping this young team understand why we're doing things and the level we have to execute to and make things happen," Anderson said. "Spring was about getting experience playing and competing while making sure our standard and culture is the same in the gym every day."
 
Texas State volleyball is looking to push itself to the next level. After a sixth-straight conference championship appearance, the Bobcats are looking to earn some recognition on a national level in the 2023 season. 
 
"We want to make that jump of not just being the top of the Sunbelt but being top 25 in the country," Huiet said. "That comes from the defensive side of things. We focused a lot on our serve and our defense this spring. When we add some of our recruits and some transfers into our mix in the fall, that will all come."