Volleyball Preview '21: Setters
Coach Cook's Thoughts On The 2021 Dawgs
UW Athletic Communications
8/23/2021
Ella May Powell
Fourth-Year
2020-21 Key Stats: 10.23 assists/set | 0.33 aces/set | 2.36 digs/set
2020-21 First Team All-America
“The biggest thing that stood out last year about Ella May was her leadership. Her ability to connect the team to the coaching staff and keep things flowing in the right direction. She did what she does best, is find ways to help her team win. That is one of her intangible skills. Now I think she’s really invested in refining her craft. She’s extremely easy to coach right now. She’s open-minded and taking risks, and interested in making changes that maybe a younger version of herself wouldn’t be interested in making, and that just shows a great maturity and willingness to keep getting better."
Olivia Mikkelsen
Third-Year
2020-21 Key Stats: 6 sets played, 1.83 assists per set
“She’s contributed a lot in the last two years in our gym, and she’s had a heavy usage in our gym and she got us through last fall period on her own, which was a lot. She looks great, not only athletically but from a skill perspective. The setting has finally come into a place where we’ve been trying to get it for a while, she’s always been a strong athlete but now she looks like a skilled setter. Nothing but confidence in her as a server, setter, and defender at this point.”
Molly Wilson
First-Year
“We’re trying to see how much she can learn and how quickly she can learn it. She’s set a lot and had some great setting coaches, but we’re asking her to do some things differently, and I’ve been impressed with how quickly she makes changes to her footwork and her handwork as a setter. She’s a very complete setter. She can serve and defend at a noticeably high level, which is not something you always get with first-year setters. She’s jumped right in, and I’m excited to see her play in some six-on-six environments to see just how much she can learn in the early part of the season."