One of the key pieces for Stanford women’s volleyball this season is junior middle blocker Sami Francis. Francis missed half of last season due to injury, but is feeling healthy and excited for what the 2023 season has in store. She recently shared her thoughts about the season and why she feels like this year could be special.
After going to Europe as a team and getting a chance to work together, Francis feels like things are starting to come together. She likes how everyone is bought in and striving to be the best they can be.
“It’s been good,” Francis said. “Been putting a lot of work in. So, yeah. We look pretty solid this year…I do think we have a lot more chemistry now. We’re more gelled together. It also helped that we went to Europe and we’ve basically been playing all year together and all last year. So, that’s helped tremendously and then the incorporation of the freshmen also helped a lot. They’re a really great group and so they challenge us to be better and I think that collectively we’ve been striving to be our best selves.”
What Francis liked about the European trip is it gave them a chance to see where they are while also getting a chance to integrate with the new freshmen. She feels like as a result, the team is much more comfortable with one another.
“I think that kinda just the work we’ve put in over the offseason has really helped us to get where we are now and I think showed a lot ion Europe in how we’ve just, we took a little break over the summer because we didn’t see each other and then got right back into it,” Francis said. “And it looked pretty good…Oh, I think it helped a lot [to play with the freshmen]. It showed us what kind of players they were sooner. It also helped us to get a foot in the door in terms of like team bonding and meshing well together and I think it helped them get a glimpse of kinda what it was like. I mean, it’s very different. European style volleyball, but just playing with us they got a little glimpse sooner than now. So, it was good.”
A big focus for this season has been team culture. While it’s always been a focus, Francis feels like it’s especially a focus for this year. She hopes that it will pay dividends for them as they look to win a national championship.
“I think we've really really focused on our team culture,” Francis said. “All my four years or three years now we have, but I think this year we've just emphasized let's glue it all together. We're starting meetings with Kevin personally, we're doing team culture meetings a few times a week, and we've really dug in on our values. We're reading books about team legacies and how to further our performance.
“Kevin also preaches distinguishing between being a volleyball player and being somebody outside of that. So I think we've also been working on who we are outside of volleyball and how we play, who we play, the outcome doesn't define who we are as a person. But I think that we've just strived to be better. Yeah team culture is strong this year.”
Looking back on their loss to San Diego in the Elite Eight, Francis admitted that was really tough. At the same time, it’s all about turning lemons into lemonade and Francis feels like that loss has fueled the team to be even better.
“Ok, takeaways, I’d say that it was kind of like a bittersweet moment because we knew we could have done it,” Francis said. “We could have pulled through. But, I think it made us more eager to come back this year and be able to just stay on top and execute more thoroughly. In terms of the sting, it's different for everyone, but I mean we all think about it to this day. I think it just pushes us to be better and want to win more. Feeling like we were just there pushes us more, too.”
For Francis and the rest of her teammates, it’s all about looking ahead and not dwelling on the past. They know last season didn’t end the way they wanted it to, but at the same time, they recognize the opportunity that is in front of them. If they make the most of it and play their best, they know they have a chance to be the team that wins the national championship:
“I think we really want to just be able to play steadily at the highest level we can. And I think that we had a couple dips here and there throughout the season, but I think that we want to be able to stay on top throughout the whole year and show everybody that we came to play, we came to win, and this is our year.”
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