Abby Guezen Interview | University of Alberta Pandas & Team Canada

0:00Welcome to Bumpset Channel. The podcast where volleyball professionals come on share their stories, experiences, and advice. From Team Canada and University of Alberta, I have Adi Goosen. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, now did I get your last name right? Yes, that's how I broke it. Excellent. All right, so welcome to the podcast and we will start things off as we do a few random questions. So are you ready? Yeah, I'm ready. All right. If they played intro songs for starters, what would your song be? Um, I like the spins by Mac Miller. I feel like that song really gets me pumped up. All right, there we go. And now favorite place you've ever played a match in. I think when we played in Turkey, the gem was pretty incredible. There's a lot of fans in there, probably the most I've ever seen in my life. All right. And now what's one TV show or movie you watch way too many times? Uh, definitely. Brooklyn 999. Okay. Nice.

1:05All right. Well, welcome to the show. And let's, you know, let's go right to the start. Where are you from? I'm from Sherwood Park, Alberta. Okay. And then when did you first discover volleyball? I discovered volleyball in grade seven just by chance of my friends going to the trial and they said, Hey, you should come to the trial with us. I just joined them in my regular shoes at a great time. Nice. And yeah, for you, what is the hook volleyball has on you that it's your main sport is taking you to, you know, play all over the world and play it in, you know, at the University of Alberta? Honestly, I played a lot of sports throughout junior high and high school. Um, I kind of did it all and loved all of them. And then volleyball just gave me the most opportunity fastest. And I found that I made the most friends on my teams in the sport consistently and just got so much closer with the players. So so easy to just fall in love with them. And then my parents played a bit of volleyball too. So just like me, I'll

2:06share that love with them too. It's just made me want to keep going with it. All right. And now what it, you know, if you, there was another sport that you played besides volleyball, what would it be? Definitely basketball. Yeah. All right. Did you play club volleyball before, you know, going on and playing for Alberta? Yeah. I played club volleyball. I started in grade eight and I played with Pantas volleyball club for most of it and a little bit with Park volleyball club in Sherbrook. Okay. And now how important was is it that you played club volleyball to your growth and, you know, to be able to take you to where you are now? It was definitely very important just being able to train more consistently throughout the year than just in the school season. Um, I actually played middle for most of my club volleyball career. And then Pantas volleyball was very supportive in helping me make that transition into becoming an outside in my 17, 18 years. So, um, yeah, it's really very important that I had the opportunity

3:07to play with them. Yeah. That's funny. You say that I had Molly McCay John. She went to Texas and plays for Team USA. And she, you know, her, one of the things she advocates for is don't put the tall girl in the middle. Let them play other positions so they can develop passing and, you know, all of the other things, the essential skills you need. Yeah. No, definitely I grew with her. Whatever she said, she's probably right about it. Um, being put in the middle is definitely not the highlight of my career at all. But when I advocated for myself and became an outside, then I really took off in this sport. Nice. And then, you know, you, when you finished high school, University Alberta was next, you know, what was your recruiting process like? Were there other schools you were looking at? Yeah, there is definitely a couple other schools. I think that in the years that most people did recruiting was mostly like grade 11 start of grade 12. Um, I wasn't the best outside in, in the country. I wasn't like a huge recruit, but I definitely caught attention of a few

4:09schools and I saw the potential in me to make me something great. And I think that I just felt that you have a had the most belief in me and the best vision for me. And so that's where I went. And I'm so happy I couldn't, yeah, like I couldn't have made a better decision in my life. And now this is basically your backyard, right? Going to your home school, essentially? Yeah, basically, like grew up in their club. Now I get to play for them and my parents can come to basically every game. It's really nice. That is so important. You know, I live down here in Connecticut and I go up to a lot of the Yukon games and I see these parents there. They're there from every home game, but they're flying in from Texas. They're coming in from DC. And it's like, you know, be able to have your parents at every game is so important. They must love it. Yeah, they absolutely love it. They're some of the biggest pandas valuable fans you'd ever meet. Oh, nice. And now, you know, what, you know, what about the University of Alberta stood out to you when you look at the other schools that you were thinking about playing at? Yeah, I mean, a lot of schools are great in

5:13Canada. I think definitely being close to home helps. And I just, I, yeah, I just meshed with the girls right away on my visit. And I just, I recognize that they had a team culture that I really wanted to be a part of. And I mean, Lori was at the time was the one recruiting me. Carolyn wasn't our head coach yet. And I mean, she's an incredible coach. Like, you can't ask for much better and then to have Carolyn fill in when I came here. I just two amazing coaches. And I, it just all added up. And it was perfect for me. Nice. Yeah, I speak of Carolyn, I care a little Dwyer. I got to meet her at an auto at the VNLs. And you know, just super nice, you know, just such a great person to talk to. Yeah, no, I love her. She's, she's been an incredible role model for me. Excellent. And you know, something, you know, down here in the States, the college season goes essentially from end of August to, you know, early December. In Canada, you sports, you go from was it like October or September all the way through to March, April or

6:17March? Yeah, yeah, our preseason starts in September usually. And then we go to mid March for nationals. If we make it, that's a long season. It is, but I mean, I love it. I, I want to play all year round basically when I take breaks. I go a little bit crazy. So I couldn't complain about how long it is. And there's something I often forget to ask the college in university players is, you know, what is your major? I'm in Kinesiology. Okay. So you're not, you, you didn't pick like basket weaving and just go play volleyball. You've got a hard course. You're going a hard major. Yeah. No, I, yeah. I love Kinesiology. I want to go into occupational therapy later on as a master's. It's just something about it. It just makes me happy. It's kind of volleyball or something to work towards off the court. And it's awesome. Excellent. And now for you, you know, that looking back at your freshman season, you know, what were some of the more

7:18challenging things for you? I think that my freshman season, the toughest part was that it was the first time I didn't play right away. I was on the bench for most of the first semester with getting chances to sub in, but definitely learning how to be a good teammate off of the court and contributing to making our starting side better in practice was something that was like a hard learning curve for me. But I mean, my coaches were right there with me to help me figure out how that worked. And then obviously I was always pushing to make it on the starting side and I eventually did. But yeah, just learning how to do that and then bouncing school as well all at the same time. It just, it was a lot. But yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, something a lot of other players I've talked to the command, you know, that that first year, that challenging part is you're leaving club where you're, you know, you're the top dog. And now you're coming to college where you're riding the bench. You may not even see floor at all. And that's, you know, it's a, it's a hit on your ego. It's like,

8:19okay, did I make the right choice? A lot of second guessing. But, you know, you stick with it and it will pay off. Yeah. No, it definitely, definitely did pay off. Um, I'm always a very forward thinker too. So I just had a belief. I was like, no, I'm going to be starting soon. I was just believe that. And then I did. So yeah. And you know, the other adjustment too is coming from club where you're playing with everybody on age. Now you're in college where you're playing, you know, women that are maybe three years older and you four years older, stronger, faster. Was it a lot to adjust to the, what was the biggest difference? If you can remember that freshman season, the, was it the speed of the game, the, you know, quickness? What was, you know, what was the biggest changes for the game? Yeah, definitely the speed of the game was a lot different. I had had the opportunity to play for the United National Team a bit before my first season. So it was a bit reflective of that speed, but a little bit faster, I would say even. So it was nice that I sneak peak in the summer,

9:21but then coming into use sports and just having to do it every day and just playing against some players that used to be my idols basically. Yeah. It was just so definitely weird to adapt to that and take on a new perspective. Like no, they're like my opponents now or some of them were my teammates, like Lauren Tromblay. But yeah, our gym does a great job at the University of Alberta getting us used to that really fast. Nice. And now, you know, for you, what have been some of your, what have been some of the highlights since you came to UVA? The highlights are definitely the people for me and just like how hard we work for each other and for the game we love. Just doing that with like-minded people who also focus on their studies and we just all have the same goals basically. And it's just incredible because you don't want to do the work for anyone else basically. Yeah. Yeah, it was when I was just watching some content before having, you know, on the podcast. I saw a video of, I think

10:23it was maybe it was last year's semi finals where you had like 30 kills out of the 60 kills for the, you know, that game winning match. Yeah, that was, that was my rookie season. Yeah, national semifinals. That was a good game. Yeah, I'd say holy cow, 30 kills. Yeah, it's something like that. Maybe your number's right. I'm not sure. And now, you know, the young athlete is thinking about, you know, coming to play for University of Alberta. You know, why should they go there? I would say that our school is a great developing school. I mean, any player is going to get better whether they're getting playing time or not right away. And we have a lot of players that are good mentors and are people that young athletes can look forward to learning from. We're not just senior players that only worry of ourselves. We want to take care of our rookies. We want to build them so that they can take over our program and make

11:23it great once we're gone too. And not to mention, you guys got the coolest name for a mascot, the pandas. Absolutely. I agree. Our mascot's awesome. Yeah. And now, you know, during a game, you know, if there's a tense moment, who's going to be the Joker? Who's that one's going to crack a joke and just crack, you know, ease the tension? I think that there's definitely a few of us that have those moments. I would say that I'm one of those. Yeah, I mean, Lila Johnson, Justine Follody, Peyton Hatterson, like anyone will pop their head up at any moment and crack a Joker, just like say something that lightens the mood. Yeah. There's all of us. And jury practice, what is the one drill that you dread? You know, they say, okay, we're going to do this. It's like, oh god. Um, I honestly, I don't dread a lot of drills. Okay. I like, I would like to say none.

12:27Carolyn does a very good job of making our practices engaging and challenging us all at the same time. Sometimes there's definitely days where I hate passing. Yeah. And I never want to serve you. But overall, I like it. So I don't want to say I dread it every day, but there's some days where if I'm not feeling it, I just, I don't want to touch the volleyball on my platform. But yeah. Overall, it's all good. Good. And now, you know, when did team Canada start? When did that pop up on the radar for you that, you know, you are, you know, being looked at and, you know, opportunities were opening for you? Um, it would have been my, I did two years of 18 year volleyball. I would have been my first year of 18 year volleyball. It was actually at Nationals. I heard about this rumor at the time that there was team Canada scouts watching us. And I, I remember asking my coach about it. Then to the tournament, I was like, how do I like sign up for that? That's so cool. Like, I want to go and she was like, she was like, oh, like, they just like

13:30watched everybody like, maybe you'll get an email. And then I got an email a couple of months later. And I was like, whoa, like, I'm going to go try out for team Canada, basically. And that was when I first popped up. And it was, yeah, I didn't even like realize this is a thing until I was already invited, basically. Oh, nice. And then, then, so you got, you played for the, you know, the U19. And then you got an opportunity to play for the senior team. You know, what was that first time getting the call to go and practice with the senior team? It was pretty incredible. It would have been, so after my first year of university, I played for next gen. And I got trained the whole summer with them. And then the coming year after my second year, I went back to try out for next gen again. And then was invited to stay for the senior trout. And then they extended the senior trout. So it was kind of a month-long period of not knowing whether or not I was going to stay on the senior team and get to play with them. But just, I don't know, that month-long period was honestly the biggest blessing because it was a constant like grind. And I just knew I needed to work harder

14:34and harder every day if I wanted to stay. But it was, it was surreal. Just playing with some of the, those girls was, the volleyball was just incredible. And I, I knew it was something I wanted to stick with. So I made sure that I stayed for the whole summer. Nice. Yeah, when I had Dolly Suckbomon and she was talking about her experience, like, you know, she had to pack and didn't have enough clothes and just, it got extended. And she just, you know, was such a wonderful experience for her too. Yeah, no, definitely, same as her. I definitely had almost zero clothes with me when I had to stay. So I'd have them shipped out, but it was despite the stress of that, all it was wonderful to be there. Yeah. And now, you know, the first time you got your senior jersey, do you remember that moment? It, what our team doesn't do like a huge presentation of it, but I remember just like, I think it was when I showed my mom, I took it out of my bag. I was like, mom, this is my jersey. And I just, I started crying. I was like, like, it just was, it felt like such a cool moment for me.

15:40And then being able to put it on in Ottawa and wear it in a game. My parents were at my first game that I touched the court is. It was incredible. And then, and speaking of auto, I'm assuming that was the V&Ls, right? Yeah, that would have been V&Ls. So do you remember when you got the call or the nod that, hey, you're on the team going to, to V&Ls? Yeah. It was, um, it was kind of a odd time. I didn't actually know right away. There was kind of this last weekend before people were leaving for Ottawa and it was basically you're going to Ottawa or you're going home. It is what it seemed for some of us younger athletes. And I remember two of my friends, they were told at practice that they were going and I kind of felt like I was like, oh, like, I'm not going that's too bad. Like a little sad about it. And then I remember I texted one of the coaches and I was like, hey, like, does this mean like, I'm allowed to go home for the weekend? Like, kind of assuming I was wasn't going. And yeah, basically the coach had called me and was like, hey, um, you are going

16:42to Ottawa. So I don't know why you weren't told. I thought maybe like, maybe Joe just thought it was supposed to be obvious or something that you were going and I was like, oh, I didn't realize that he liked me, whatever. And then I ended up going. Oh, it was awesome. And now speaking of you, I got an opportunity to meet him in Ottawa and he's been on the podcast and I was chatting with him the yesterday saying that you were coming on. He says, oh, I love Abby. And he said, I asked him for a question. He goes, ask her what's her favorite alcohol. I'm sure there's some jokes there, something, some story. Yeah, there's, there's a little bit of a joke. I don't really like drinking alcohol. It's just not fun for me. Um, it's just, I don't know. Joe hates it. Basically is the story. Um, in Turkey, we went on a boat together with the team and they, they brought wine on the boat for us to enjoy. It was before, it was a week before

17:47our V&L week. We had gone early. And um, Joe was upset at me the whole time. He's like, why aren't you drinking wine? Have fun. Yada, yada, yada. Um, I refused to drink it. I was like, I don't, I don't feel like drinking it. Like, it's, I, I hate the taste. So, um, he's like, try to offer me other things. And so, yeah, asking me my favorite alcohol is funny because I don't have a favorite because I don't like any of that. Well, I'll tell you what, next time he says, hey, you have a drink of this, you tell him he's got to have a slice of Hawaiian pizza. Yeah, well, I love Hawaiian pizzas. So that's a pretty fair trade off. Absolutely. Cause I asked him, you know, there's, there's, you know, just pineapple belong in pizza. He goes, no, pepperoni. Oh, he's like, all right. He's, he is a pizza connoisseur. So, yes. Yeah, yeah, he is. But I mean, growing up with Canadian pizza, pineapple is definitely made the pizza better here. Absolutely. I'm 100% with you on that one. And now, you know, going to Ottawa, that must have been such a special moment. First of all,

18:50you know, representing Canada. And you're at the V&Ls. You're playing some great countries. What was that overall experience like for you? It was, it was incredible. And I think the first time for me being in Canada, playing V&L just made it so much better because having a home crowd and everyone like supporting you, it just made it so much easier to transition into that level of play because everyone was just like holding up their signs and just ecstatic when we did stuff that was good. And it just, yeah, it made it so much better and then playing the top players. It honestly felt surreal. But then as a, like a younger athlete, it took so much pressure off of me. I just got to go in and play free. And it made it really easy to, yeah, just do some good things. Nice. And, you know, what did you notice about the difference of play? Like, you know, different countries have different styles. Like playing Japan, it's got to be feeling like you're

19:52playing a bunch of, you know, six liberals on the court because nothing hits the floor. And then you're playing somebody like, you know, Norway are just tall. There's different styles of play that the countries play. What was the biggest adjustment for you? I think definitely, like, seems like Penn and Thailand, just like this faster offense with more trick plays. They ran, it was, it was cool to play against it. But we did like a really good job scouting. So we like always knew what to expect from every team and every player and their tendencies. And so that really made it a lot easier. And also my school team, actually, we had a team, a university team from Japan come join us in Alberta for two, almost two weeks. They're Kenoya. And so that, like, having that experience before going to VNL, definitely made it a bit easier and just like already having seen a different style of play and then getting to go experience at a higher level. It was a

20:53nice stepping stone. Yeah, definitely. And one other thing I noticed when I was watching, you got watching the warmups, Geo was, you know, before the match, Geo went around to every one of the players and just had a few words. And I thought that was really cool for him to do. And I guess he's been doing that for a while. And it's got to be, it's like, ooh, I think I got to steal that. Can I coach, I help coach high school volleyball? I was like, that's just a nice way to get the, the players just to sort of refocus and have a few minutes just to, you know, relax and chat. Yeah. No, I definitely love when he does that. And I think that more coaches, if they have the time in their warmups, depending on what, like, level, level of play can be harder. But, um, yeah, he just basically came around and he'd ask each of us first. He'd ask if we had questions for him about the game. Um, it could be, like, game pattern related or, like, what's my role today? Stuff like that. So we'd get to talk to him first. And then he would tell us, basically, like, this is what I see you for today. Like, for me, it was usually like, be ready. Like,

21:57I want to use you if I need to use you, um, kind of thing. And just kind of like reassurance about how good we did in practice and stuff like that to kind of boost our confidence. And so it felt really good every day, like, knowing that, um, yeah, he appreciated me as a player and wanted me to be ready. Nice. And now, during your experience with team Canada, what did you learn most about yourself? Um, I think that I learned about how hard I can push myself. Um, I mean, it's not every player can put in all of the work. It's hard for every player to want to go to the gym and lift his heavy weights as they can and go to practice then right after and push as high as they can to try and make a starting lineup. Um, so I just like learned how hard I can push myself. And yeah, basically, I found a boat about myself that the sky's the limit. I can just keep pushing and mentally, it's not easy

23:04every day. But, um, yeah, just being willing to put myself through all that work and then seeing the success from it is definitely something that I learned a bit more about myself in the summer than I had ever before. Right. And during that, you know, span of time with team Canada, who were some of the people that were, you know, were either mentors or just, you know, really helped you during that experience? I think, um, yeah, a lot of the older players were really good at welcoming us younger players onto the team. Um, like Emily Maglio was, she was a rock for me. Um, I love that girl. She still texts quite frequently. Like, she just, she always had words of wisdom for me, but then was get it making things light off the court too. Um, Hillary was also, yeah, a rock. We, we had like low meetings every day. We did Bible study together, but then we'd also talk about volleyball

24:06and like how things are going. So that really helped me. Um, and then also just being able to move up from next gen with quite a few players and having them there with me, that made it, that made it, um, a lot easier like just knowing that there's other people making the same transition I was making. And then definitely having Carolyn as an assistant coach, just a familiar face. And yet she knew like what I needed when basically is that made it a lot easier for me to, yeah, be prepared every day basically. All right. And now, you know, coming back to the pandas, how was, how did team, the team can't experience impacted your confidence coming back? And you know, it's tough to come back. You're, you're playing at this high level. And now you're coming back to you sports, which is, you know, it's a very high level. But I've had a similar conversation with other players who like played for team USA, then came back and played for the college. And it's tough. Everybody's sort of, some of the players may not be as committed as on the national level. And it's a bit of adjustment to not come back and say, oh, we, we do this this way and,

25:08and just, you know, keep focus. Yeah. I mean, last year coming back from next year, I had a lot harder of a time, I think. And then I did a lot of growing throughout last year, so that now that I'm coming back from the senior team, I feel like I've just had so much knowledge to share with my teammates. And everyone at the pandas wants to work just as hard as the people do in the summer. And everyone's willing to put in that work on and off the court. And so it's, it's a great team to come back to in Canada. I wouldn't, I don't, I don't know if every team like that is like that in Canada, but I know our program. I mean, especially having a coach like Carolina Dwyer demanding those things from us, it's just nice to rejoin that environment and then share the experience I gained from players like Emily Maglio and Hillary and Bri and Kira and just bringing that to my team and be like, okay, now I'm like, I can be a leader for you guys and I can share what I learned. And just kind of being able to pass it forward to the next generation

26:09for players on my team that also want to join the national team. It yeah, it's been a really good year coming back, I think. And now were you spoiled a little bit with having Bri as your center? Yeah, yeah, I was definitely spoiled. She definitely just put the ball in my hand a lot. Yeah. And I had a lot of free will. And she's just, she's an incredible person too. So being able to learn from her just as like a valuable player and a human in every day life too, I was definitely spoiled by getting to play with her for a bit this summer. Yeah, I had I was talking to Jacob Pasteur who plays for Team USA and he was talking about, you know, going from the college gym to Team USA where he has Micah Christiansen as a center and he goes, during one of the practice afterwards hitting Micah came over to him and said, Jacob, I'm sorry, I left that one ball six inches too high. And Jacob's like, what are you talking like, you know, that's the

27:09perfection though that you know, you you have at that level. It's like, it's just wild. Yeah, no, it's it's incredible like how good she is. And there's some of the things like she does at the national fling it backwards using like her hands in two different directions. I don't I can't imagine ever being able to make my hands do that. I think that I'm pretty blessed though having the setters I do have at Pandas. I mean, having Justine Clody for two years, she's she's an incredible setter and she has a bright future. And this year we started the year with Sophia Magus. I'm just seen without for a while, but she's also incredible and has some national team experience. So I think I'm pretty blessed having pretty amazing setters all year, but for you, it was definitely something special. Nice. And when it comes to game day, do you have any get me a pregame rituals? You need to have a certain meal, listen to certain music. What's your sort of feel? Get ready. Yeah, I mean, I always have a few pump up songs that will be on repeat

28:10every season. Like this summer, it was some songs Casey just had given me and I was like, yeah, those are awesome. Like I got to put those in my AirPods. Me and Quinn in the summer, we were always roommates, Quinn Pelland. And so we had our little get our hair done, get ready, ritual, and it was always nice to like be there with her before the game getting ready together. And we had our music playing together and we'd dance and sing. And that was definitely something like music is a big thing for me before games. So all right. And now, you know, during a game, you know, how do you handle the confidence swings? You know, especially after you have a couple of, you know, bad plays, you know, what's your go to to reset? I feel like my go to is just thinking about how much work I've put into where I am. In the summer, it was definitely my confidence swings came from wanting to do well for my teammates. And just knowing that geo as a coach, he's going

29:19to celebrate everything I do good. And so that was something that I was like, push for like, I want to do something good because Jill's going to celebrate with me. And then I'll feel good about myself. And then when I did something bad and maybe he got upset at me, it was, I knew that it was because he knew I could do better. And it wasn't because I was just the worst player ever. I was just like, he knows I am better than that. And that kind of helped a lot just being able to realize like, how much belief everyone around me had in me as like a young player on the court in Vietnam. So all right. And now, you know, from a technical standpoint, you know, what's one technical detail, if you can think about it, whether it's a footwork, arm swing, reading the block that made a big difference in your game in the last couple of years. I think definitely like learning how to serve receive was something that has made a big difference for me coming from being a middle for most of my club career to now being actually originally switched to being an opposite for club

30:20and with the United National team for a bit. And then I had to learn how to pass eventually. And just like being able to always push to get better at that and having great passing coaches that that's definitely something that's made my game a lot better because I find when I don't pass well, then I get down on myself and then I won't hit well. And then so now that I feel a lot better about that on a daily basis, I've definitely just seen everything else get better with it because that's truly where the game starts. It's with passing. Yep, absolutely. If you don't have a good pass, you can't write an offense. Exactly. And what are some of the little things that have helped you be a better blocker? Definitely like working with my eyes more. I used to kind of close my eyes a bit. But yeah, I've definitely got better at keeping them open and just having getting stronger and having extra height above the net just gives me more time to see what I see and read and be able to drop my hands. Yeah, and just lots of coaches giving me all different types

31:25of feedback all the time. Just always having something to work on with it has, yeah, definitely helped. All right. How do you approach, you know, scouting a team you're going to play? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely incredibly important. We've had preseason games with pandas where we don't scout because it's preseason. We just kind of want to see how we play as a team and be less worried about the other team. And I definitely find it a lot harder than when we do scout games. I actually think with the pandas we do as much or more scouting than we would with team Canada, obviously, because we have usually like one day between games with team Canada. And we have a whole week to prepare and our coaches do an incredible job with pandas of making everything in that week towards that team. So we have, we'll have like one or two practices that are focused on our team. And then the other practices we go in, we have simulations from our other side of

32:26the court, they'll pretend to be certain players. And it just makes me feel so prepared every weekend to be able to go in and play my best, because I know exactly what's coming at me from other team. And then when you're doing your scouting, what are some important pieces of information you're looking for? You're looking for how the set are sets or reads or how the opposite hitter approaches or how do you notice some of the things that may help younger players when it comes to scouting? Yeah, definitely for me as an outside focusing on like the hitting tendencies is a huge thing for me because being able to go up and know exactly where they're hitting basically before I have to decide where my block's going. Helps in playing defense around that. Setter tendencies are good too. Like does the setter like setting short string does she like trying to set the long string if her backs towards the net, which way she's setting? Just lots of things like that and then serving as a receiver, like seeing how the other team serves

33:28move. And if they like to drop it more, that always helps. Yeah, there's lots of little things to pick up from a lot of areas of the game. Definitely how their team's defense is too as an attacker. Yeah. On a high ball, do they shift line or do they stay cross just kind of knowing what I have open in advance before I'm up in the air trying to see where to head. Yes. And speaking of serve receives something I saw Japan do or the Japan had one player in their team that has this crazy hybrid serve. It looks like it's a jump float, but all of a sudden it's a spin serve. Like, whoa, that's got to be so hard to try to pass receive. Yeah. It's definitely, I mean, we know what's coming. We know exactly she's going to do that every time. And it's it's our ball to pass. But yeah, I mean, every server is going to have their own little tricks. So she's an incredible server. Ishikawa, I believe you're talking about.

34:29Yeah. She yeah, it was definitely cool to be able to learn how to pass her serve. I'm now starting a hybrid on my own basically because of her. I just want to geo wants me to have a bit more of a weapon in my serve. And yeah, she's one of the people I modeled my serve after because it definitely messes up the server seed line. Yeah. And it's it's a great tool to have in your toolbox. You know, if you can, if you know, somebody's not expecting it and you know, with that high spin toss, you, you know, everyone's getting ready to, you know, it's coming. But when it's a jump float, you, you know, you really got to be on your toes. And I think it's, yeah, it's a great thing to add to your toolbox. Yeah. No, it's it's been fun like learning to do it myself. Just because learning the different things I'm capable of doing with it, which way I can spin it. How much I can spin if I can take some spin off and kind of have it rise up at them. There's just so many things you can do with that type of serve that I would say are a lot harder to do with a spin

35:31serve because you can't really, it's really hard to be able to float a spin toss. But you can do that with the hybrid serve toss. So I like that type of serve. And yeah, she's an incredible player herself to model that after. Absolutely. And then for you, what is, you're getting your sweet set. So your breeze giving you a sweet set. What is that ball going to be? Are you looking for, you know, what's your favorite ball to hit? I mean, I think that a lot of people knew from the summer. My favorite shot was sharp cross. I just, yeah, she would just lay it up in this perfect zone. And I'd just come in and wrap it completely sharp cross. And yeah, that was definitely a key hit for me in the summer. I think now coming into this season, Gio wanted me to find a lot more angles. And so I've been working on hitting more line. And I feel like right now I'm going to go to this last weekend, at least was line, which is nice to know that I have the ability to do that. And hopefully can bring that into the summer and be able to hit both angles more consistently. Yeah, that's, that's something I see a lot of the younger hitters

36:35struggle with is to learn to hit line. Everything is cross core. But to be able to take it down the line is so important for a hitter to add to their, to their weapon. It's just so, you know, it's, it's, yeah, because you know, when you're playing defense, you know, it's coming across core. Everybody's prepared for it. But if you could take it down the line a bunch of times, it's just so much more valuable. Yeah, definitely. It was definitely a learning curve for me to get better at hitting line. I want to expose myself too much, but my issue used to be that I would, I would do either a cross body shot and that would work, but it would be a bit more off speed. Or I would turn, but then I'd still do a cross body arm swing and it would go straight out this out of the court. I've gotten better at not doing that though. So that was definitely sorry for me and maybe other players struggle with that too and just being able to differentiate what their hand and arm is doing. Yeah, they turn. And speaking of, you know, you're, you're in a lucky position where you have your, you know, university coach with you with Carolyn and, you know, Giovanni. What are their coach, are their coaching style similar or is like night and day? It's,

37:41was it tough to come back from coaching with with Geo as your coach? And now Carolyn, what was that sort of transition like? Honestly, I think that Carolyn's done a good job of making that transition very smooth for me. Our coaching staff at Pandas were pretty blessed. Not a lot of youth sports seem to have this, but we have a lot of coaches that will show up to our practice every day, whether they're volunteer or on payroll to help us run lots of drills. And so we have specialty coaches for certain things. And if you need to work on defense, you go see me. If you want to work on attacking, go ask Carolyn, go ask Mike. Like there's, there's coaches for everything, which is really nice at Pandas. And that's something that we had more in the summer. Yeah. So that's been nice. And then also chairlands. She's a young coach. So she's always looking for new things to pull into her own gym. So in the summer, she learned a lot from Geo. And she's Brennan drills with his back to our program now. And that's made it easy for me because now these

38:46are drills that I know how to like work in really well. And I'm, it makes it easier for me to lead my teammates in those drills because I know exactly what's going to happen because I did it all summer. Right. So that transition's been really nice. And her coaching style is, I'd say, quite like Geo. So all right. Nice. And a couple of fun questions. You know, I had Eric showed you on a while ago and him and Taylor Avril have this thing. What is the toughest position in volleyball? So Abby, what is the toughest position in volleyball? I would have to say since I used to be a middle blocker, middle blocker is the toughest. I would never want to go back to it because just being able, having to go every way to block is so hard getting off the net and transitioning super fast. Every team I've ever been on has been on our middles about that. And that I just hear it every day. Basically, like, get off the net. I don't want to ever have to do it again. Yeah. I would give them that. All right. Yeah. I had Amber

39:47GDN from, she played for Y in USA. She, you know, she's a middle and she hated it because it's always, she's always getting pushed and bumped around. And she's just, that's her thing. She hates the most about being a middle. Oh, yeah. No, definitely. I'm guilty of pushing my middles. If I do it out of love, I'm pushing them to tell them to go block the pin. Like, I got your middle. Like, go. But no, we definitely get some pushed around and then running into the center on our court, sometimes in transition. It gets all confused. And now we have the easiest, the hardest position. So what is the easiest position in volleyball? I don't think that any position is easy. But I would say that opposites have it pretty nice. They don't have to pass. They don't have the block the same amount as a middle does. They don't have to run the offense. I feel like they

40:50have the least amount of things to worry about. I used to be an opposite. So it's a little bit of self-hate. No, they definitely, I think serve receive is something that I have to do and they don't. And I'm kind of jealous. They don't have to do it a lot of the time. Well, I had a good response from one of your teammates, a team candidate, Vicks Verde. You know, when I asked her, you know, she gave her a response. And she goes, I told her that Mason Briggs and Libero for team USA said, Oh, Libero is the hardest position. And she gave him some flack for that. And I kind of get Mason spot. You only have one thing to do. And if you don't do it, well, you got nothing else to pick your game up. You can't block. You can't serve. So it's there's no easy position. Yeah, no, there's definitely an easy position. I can see a lot of people when they explain why they think certain things. I can see all the perspectives. So yeah. And now away from the court, what is something you, what are some things you like to do? I'm big into rock climbing. I'm a boulderer. Okay. So I love to do that in my spare time.

41:56Carolyn's very generous in letting me do that and not getting upset. I haven't gotten injured on her yet. So I have a lot of fun with that. Definitely spending time with my family too. I have three brothers. Oh, wow. Just being able to come home and get picked on by them is so my favorite times of the day. Nice. And I have dogs. So hanging out with them is, yeah, there's a little item in my life. There we go. Well, Abby, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it and really great to meet you. But before I let you go, like with past guests, I look for you to recommend somebody in your volleyball circle to come on and share their story. I think if you haven't had Carolyn on yet, I think she'd be a great person to have on. I kind of see the coaching experience going from the summer to where she is with the head coach of our team. I think she'd be a great person. A lot of insight from her. Excellent. All right. We'll get her on. And again, Abby, thank you so much and good luck the season.

42:57Thank you. Thanks for having me.