Stephanie Olman doesn’t care where she plays.
She’ll play any position, as long as she’s on the floor and helping her team.
So when three players in Ohio’s front row, including the team’s two captains, went down to injury, coach Deane Webb came to Olman. The discussion about moving Olman from setter to outside hitter began.
It was a quick conversation. She agreed to make the move.
“It had been a long time,” said Olman, who hadn’t played outside hitter since high school. “But I was going to do what’s best for the team, so I was ready for it.”
Converting from one position to the other isn’t an easy task, especially when doing it mid-season and on the fly.
Part of the transition included working on dealing with “bad balls,” the balls nobody wants to have to hit and are not set up within the offensive system. Being an outside hitter calls for more bad balls than the middle hitters receive.
But that’s part of playing outside hitter, and Olman is adjusting well.
As a setter, Olman had 46 assists. In four Mid-American Conference matches as an outside hitter, Olman has 45 kills, good for third on the team. She has 75 kills on the season. In Ohio’s match against Bowling Green on Sept. 30, she had 16 kills. Her hitting percentage has improved in each of the last two matches.
And although she’s still in the early stages of her transition, her success has caught the attention of the Bobcats’ coaching staff.
“You have to be very impressed,” Webb said. “She’s growing and she’s learning and we had to adjust somethings on offense to help her and we’ve done that. Vera (Giacomazzi) has done a good job finding a way to keep (Olman) involved, finding a set that works well for her.”
Impressive, yes. Surprising? Not quite.
The tangibles have been there since Olman stepped on campus. But now she must focus on the intangibles of playing outside hitter — the mental side.
“She’s a good athlete, hits a heavy ball,” Webb said. “She’s just trying to learn ‘how do I handle the bad situations? How do I get balls from different angles?’ And she’s starting to do that at a higher level.”
Thinking about and processing the game of volleyball through the lens of a new position isn’t something Olman is doing alone. One person who has helped her is Jaime Kosiorek, a senior captain and outside hitter who tallied over 1,000 kills for her career. She’s out for the season with a torn ACL.
Kosiorek was one of the Bobcats’ best players before her injury, and, with her on the sidelines, she can point out things that Olman might not be able to see on the floor.
Olman is using Kosiorek to her advantage, allowing Kosiorek to teach her, so while Kosiorek is sidelined, Olman can fill the void.
“When I’m in the game and when I come off the court during a game, she gives me the most feedback and she’s always encouraging me,” Olman said. “I’m just doing whatever I can because she can’t be out there, so I’m trying to do it for her.”
With Remmers healthy and back in the lineup, there is no telling if Olman will begin the transition back to her original position or stay an outside hitter. It’s something Olman doesn’t have an answer to, either.
“I have no idea,” she said.
But maybe that’s how it should be. The move to outside hitter was sudden, and the next conversation Webb has with her might have to be the same.
