If the St. Thomas volleyball team hopes to continue its success and capture a ninth consecutive regular-season MIAC title, the squad’s younger players will have to compensate for several key losses to graduation.

The Tommies lost several successful and talented senior players, including All-Americans Kelly Foley and Jill Greenfield, who played key parts in the team’s prior success. Although it is never easy to lose players of that caliber, coach Thanh Pham said the program has successfully dealt with the loss of talented players before.

“You can never replace players like that,” Pham said. “Even before they (Foley and Greenfield) came in, we graduated All-Americans, and we never tried to replace anyone as much as try to have kids be the best versions of themselves and step up.”

The 2015 roster includes only two seniors, setter Kayla Walton and outside hitter Kelly Biermann. With so few seniors, Pham said freshmen will be expected to fill bigger roles than in past years.

“There will be a lot of freshman that get significant time, and they don’t have the luxury of waiting a year,” Pham said. “They have to figure it out immediately…Hopefully they won’t need too much guidance, but we expect a lot out of our freshmen class.”

Despite the lack of returning experience, the Tommies still figure to be a threat to finish at the top of the MIAC standings. St. Thomas was picked to finish third in the preseason coaches poll, behind Augsburg and Bethel.

Walton is confident the Tommies have what it takes to be successful, despite key losses.

“A lot of people think we’re down this year. We lost a couple of All-American seniors, but I think it will be fun to see who steps up and takes those spots,” Walton said. “We have a lot of talent in the gym, so it will be fun to see where it goes.”

Biermann shares Walton’s confidence and stressed that the team has managed to stay successful despite losing good players every year.

“No matter what, you are always going to lose your seniors,” Biermann said. “They were fantastic players (who I) really loved playing with, but I do not think it is so much filling in their spots or making up for them as finding our own identity.”

The team still includes plenty of talented players, including 16 returning from last year’s NCAA tournament team. Pham is counting on several players to come through with big seasons, including outside hitters Taylor Lewis and Brooke Reichart, and middle blocker Whitney Lloyd.

St. Thomas officially opened up the 2015 campaign last weekend at the Wittenberg National Invitational in Wittenberg, Ohio. The tournament pitted the Tommies against some of the top programs in the country including No. 4-ranked Wittenberg (Ohio), No. 10-ranked Juniata (Pennsylvania), and Johns Hopkins (Maryland).

The Tommies lost their opening match 3-1 on Friday to Wittenberg, before splitting a pair of games on Saturday, losing 3-0 to Juniata before earning their first victory of the season with a 3-2 victory over Johns Hopkins.

Despite the young roster and senior losses, Walton stressed that the team’s goals for the season have not changed from past seasons.

“The goals are still the same, they are always the same,” she said. “We are always looking to be a championship program.”

St. Thomas’ next game is Wednesday night at Wisconsin-River Falls. MIAC play begins with a home contest against St. Ben’s on September 16th.

Willie Faust can be reached at faus5612@stthomas.edu.