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Hopefully, Lisa Seifert writes down what she says to her team after matches — especially after losses.

The SMU volleyball team opened the 2014 season with a thud, getting swept in three sets at San Francisco, a team that is good but not elite. The Mustangs were picked by American Athletic Conference coaches to win the league’s title this year, and while USF plays a lot of the strong West Coast teams, the Ponies had to think they would have put up a better fight.

Junior setter and co-captain Avery Acker ranks ninth in the NCAA with 11.61 assists per set (photo by SMU athletics).

Seifert, the Mustangs’ head coach, is passionate about the sport and her team, and fiercely competitive, saying, “I hate losing more than anything — I absolutely hate it. I hate it more than I love winning … and I frickin’ love winning. I don’t sleep (after losses). You go through, ‘what more could I have done to prepare through the week?’”

Whatever she said after the Mustangs’ season-opening loss to San Francisco should be carved in granite, because since that Aug. 29 match, the Ponies have won … and won and won. They beat a nationally ranked opponent — then-No. 24 Oklahoma — for the first time ever, and have reeled off 11 consecutive victories, the longest winning streak in the history of the program. The accomplishments are noteworthy, to say the least, but not sufficient. For Seifert to consider this season to be a success, the Mustangs must reach another goal: the NCAA tournament.

“I won’t be satisfied until we play in that damn tournament,” Seifert said. “This has been a progression. Regionally ranked. Get some kids nationally ranked. Get some All-Americans on the wall. Getting votes (for the national top 25 rankings). It’s about the next step. Get into the top 25. Get into the tournament. Win the first round. Next is the Sweet 16. Elite Eight. You’ve got to keep pushing the envelope. If you’re not doing that, you shouldn’t be coaching. Period. Go teach intramurals or something.”

The Mustangs’ success thus far — and that which they hope to achieve going forward can be traced to their coach’s fiery passion, and the unabashed intensity of senior captain, opposite hitter Caroline Young. A year ago, Young said, the Mustangs’ offseason workouts were not as intense as they should have been. As a result, the Mustangs didn’t play as well as they hoped they would, slogging their way through the start of the season before really hitting their stride once conference matches started. SMU ended up finishing second last year behind Louisville in the initial season of the American Athletic Conference; this year, league coaches picked the Ponies to win the conference title.

The reasons for the optimism are many. Young is one of the top hitters in school history who trains tirelessly — there have been times when the coaches and trainers have had to tell Young to cease putting herself through two-a-day workouts during the season — and demands similar commitment from her teammates. Junior co-captain Avery Acker is the AAC’s defending Setter of the Year and ranks ninth in the country with an average of 11.61 assists per set; for comparison, she has 511 assists this season, while the rest of the team has 60 combined. Sophomore libero Morgan Heise is sixth in the conference with 202 digs. All three have won AAC Player of the Week awards this year (Young and Acker have won the league’s offensive award; Heise the defensive award). Junior outside hitters Abbey Bybel and Cailin Bula and middle blockers Janelle Giordano and Kristen Stehling are among the others who have been vital to the Mustangs’ success.

Seifert has had talented teams in the past, some led by exceptional players. But the 2014 squad is the school’s best yet, she said.

“Top to bottom, yes,” Seifert said when asked if this year’s team is the best in SMU history. “For sure. If you brought me out the rosters of every team — this is my 19th year — I could asterisk three or four kids on every team that did really good things, were really good players. But on this team, there’s 10 kids that can really play, and there’s four more that are learning to play.

“It’s not really about depth. What we’re able to do, because of the talent of the team, is … our offensive distribution, our set selection … the distribution is more balanced. So let’s say, for example, that in a match, there’s 100 sets — 100 times that Avery sets the ball. In the past, a Rachel Giubilato would have gotten 60 of those. Right? That’s just an example, but that one kid is taking on the load. With this offense, with these players, if you look at who’s getting the ball, Caroline might get 30. Abbey (Bybel) might get 35. Cailin Bula could get 30. Janelle Giordano could get 27. Kristen Stehling could get 17 or 18. So as a defense, who are you stopping? That’s what makes us better than we’ve ever been: we have five or six kids who can hammer the ball — hammer it. That whole tipping the ball thing? We don’t tip. If we’re forced to, because of the situation, yeah, we can, but we’re going to score points. We’re going for the kill.”

Senior co-captain Caroline Young leads the Mustangs with 3.55 kills per set (photo by SMU athletics).

In addition to the team’s physical gifts, which are numerous, Seifert said the team is mentally the toughest team ever to suit up at SMU. The record-setting 11-match winning streak has not come against a slate of talentless pushovers; in addition to the nationally ranked Sooners, the Mustangs have knocked off a collection of other talented teams, including Georgia Tech (from the Atlantic Coast Conference), New Mexico (Seifert’s pick to win the Mountain West Conference) and a pair of tough Southeastern Conference teams in Georgia, which made last year’s NCAA Tournament and Arkansas, which SMU defeated in the final round of its home tournament in Fayetteville. In several matches, the Ponies have found themselves falling behind and needing to rally.

If Seifert is the team’s most maniacal competitor, she is followed closely by Young, who has been known to challenge her teammates in no uncertain terms to match her intensity in training. Seifert and her staff look for passionate players when recruiting; in Young’s case, they were confident that they had found a player willing to do anything to win, and have been pleasantly surprised to see her execution match her intensity.

“Caroline Young, four years ago, made a decision, and we have recruited kids who can surround her, in the sense of … they’re as competitive, as intense as she is,” Seifert said. “But Caroline set the standard for work ethic. So this year, the focus word, the word on the back of their T-shirt? ‘Work.’ The phrase, the unity phrase that we use, is ‘one fist.’ Since Caroline has been in the program, I have never had to ask the unit to work harder, because Caroline is always on that before I have to.

“I knew how competitive she was, because when you watch a kid, when she plays, and who can execute in crunch time … there’s a huge difference, but when you are executing in crunch time, you’re not making a hitting error. You are putting the ball down (on the floor) and then going through the celebration, and then it’s the laughter and the joy that comes with that. That’s when you know you’ve got a passionate player. So I knew that that was coming — I knew we were getting that. But I didn’t know how technically successful she would be.

“The biggest difference with this group (compared to) teams in the past, is that top to bottom, one to 15, one to 16, however many kids we have — we have 14 healthy kids right now — they’re all in it, they’re all on it. There’s nobody straggling. There’s nobody Caroline has to swing back around and get in their faces. Nobody.”

If Young is the on-court leader in matches and in training, Acker appears to be the obvious heir apparent for that role.

“It’s Caroline … and Avery is damn close,” Seifert said. “Those two are our co-captains, and what Avery says goes, too. I have great captains, I have a great team. Janelle, she’s a sophomore who went to Europe this summer, and she’s going to fly. Abbey Bybel follows Caroline around — they eat together, they work out together — and you can’t believe how much she has improved.

“When I watch a (high school) kid, they’d better show me that passion, they’d better show me that work ethic. They’d better show me that, when it’s 14-14, they want the ball, and they execute aggressively. Don’t freakin’ tip the ball. Don’t give the other team, ‘I’m scared, so … here.’ Hit the ball. Hard — as hard as you can. You are looking to damage the opponent. Now I want you. So you look at Caroline. She’s five … nine? That kid’s not big … but she’s an All-American. I’ll take that every day.”

SMU volleyball head coach Lisa Seifert has her sights set on the NCAA Tournament (photo by SMU athletics).

The Mustangs have enjoyed the best non-conference run in school history, piling up 11 victories and doing so against quality opposition. Now they begin the AAC matches when they host UCF — chosen to finish second in the conference — Friday night and USF Sunday. Young said the team’s ability to navigate the tough non-conference schedule should pay off against their league competition.

“UCF is a great team,” Young said. “We beat them (twice) last year, but they’re always strong, and they added some players this year.

“In comparison to previous (non-conference schedules), it’s definitely strong. I don’t think that, because our record is good, that we have been playing easy teams. Coach definitely scheduled us at tournaments that would push us and pressure us into situations, and she knew that from the years before that if we don’t play any big teams from big conferences, we don’t get any points to get into the NCAA Tournament. The teams that we have beaten, they’re usually in the top half of their conferences, and in the SEC, ACC. Usually six teams come out of those, so if we can get a win against someone who finishes second in a conference like that, it would be really significant, really important.

Seifert said she was enormously proud when the program she started from scratch knocked off the nationally ranked Sooners, although she and Young agreed that for the overall growth of the program, the consistency needed to reel off a record 11 consecutive wins is ultimately more important. Now, as expected, they both insist that their early-season accomplishments will ring hollow if they don’t end the season with the school’s first invitation to the NCAA Tournament.

“That is always our ultimate goal,” Young said. “Even though preseason has been fun and we have awesome record, that doesn’t matter … because going is all that matters.”

“I won’t be satisfied until we play in that damn tournament,” Seifert said. “This has been a progression. Regionally ranked. Get some kids nationally ranked. Get some All-Americans on the wall. Getting votes. It’s about the next step. Get into the top 25. Get into the tournament. Win the first round. Next is the Sweet 16. Elite Eight. You’ve got to keep pushing the envelope. If you’re not doing that, you shouldn’t be coaching. Period.

“We have had a great start. But we’re not done.”