By Chardonnae Parker / Delta Managing Editor

The Missouri Valley College men’s volleyball team hit the second month of its season with a seven-and-four overall record.

Early on, the Vikings struggled to beat ranked opponents, but since then have hosted the Viking Invitational with three different ranked opponents, played against ranked opponents in regular matches, and participated in the Park Invitational facing two ranked opponents,

The 2020 roster is filled with new names and faces.

Daniel Velasquez is the only senior on the team this season and had a few comments to ass about the team and its youth.

“Our youth is extremely important,” Velasquez said. “We have an extremely young team this year. We did return a lot of sophomores from last year that were freshmen. This year we do have a lot of freshman’s faces and a lot of the freshman that we do have are key players into our lineup that we do have “

Velasquez said he has been a part of the team for five years and he just hopes to leave his mark on this season.

In addition to the 23 team members, the volleyball team has a new graduate assistant who is taking his player viewpoint to the sideline.

Tzvetan Todorov played at Valley not even a year ago and hopes to take that player perspective to the sideline to the program.

“The guys are comfortable with me being a coach because they have seen me play,” Todorov said. “The have seen me practice. I think they have a lot of respect for me as I have a lot of respect for them.”

As the team rallies together to start conference play, it looks to be led by freshman Joao Vitor Bonanon, libero, who was recognized as defender of the week two weeks in a row. In the heart of American conference. The team hopes that it’s short coming to ranked opponents early in the season teaches them how to fight and finish a match.

Valley opened its conference season with a pair of road wins, sweeping Clarke and topping Mount Mercy in five sets. Since then the Vikings have earned a pair of wins against ranked opponents and hope to continue to get great team wins.