After struggling to find their identity after a fourth-place national finish at the end of their inaugural season, the College of DuPage men’s volleyball team worked to become a more experienced squad led by their coaches. With an amped up intensity, the Chaparrals are in search of different results this season.

The true testing grounds of the NJCAA Invitational tournament is just one month away.

Head volleyball coach Tolis Koskinaris hadn’t coached collegiate men’s volleyball before the Chaps’ inaugural season last year. He’s been the head women’s coach since 2015 and has started to make sense of the differences between coaching the men’s team and the women’s team.

“At youth volleyball and at women’s volleyball, there are similarities,” Koskinaris noted. “You can win by just playing great defense and making few errors. In men’s volleyball, it’s a scoring game. You have to get past the errors, because those are going to happen in men’s volleyball. If you play conservative to not make errors, you will lose.”

Koskinaris said the game of men’s volleyball hasn’t changed much since he played in college, but adjusting his mindset from player to coach was challenging. He noted more differences between coaching men’s and women’s volleyball.

“In the women’s season you try to score but limit your errors at the same time. In men’s, you almost just have to let the errors go,” Koskinaris said. “It’s very hard, especially if you coach women’s, too. You’ve just got to always focus on how to score. Sometimes you’ll see errors, and you’re like, ‘why don’t you just put it in play?’ If you just put it in play against an above average men’s team, that ball is coming back, and it’s going to get shoved down your throat. That’s just the way it is, and you can’t have that.”

Men’s volleyball assistant coach Braden Woods also bought into the start of COD men’s volleyball, coaching his second season alongside Koskinaris and assistant coach Frank Martinez. He said one of the biggest improvements from last season is the size of the team.

“Our athleticism overall and just the level of the athletes that we have has definitely increased,” Woods said. “That has come with a size increase across the board. We’ve got a much bigger front row than we were dealing with. We even have a bigger back row to a certain extent.”

Woods also credited the addition of more experienced players as a key difference.

“[We also] have some guys that are much more positionally trained,” Woods continued. “We were a lot [younger] last season, and some dudes just didn’t quite have the same level of experience on the court. Now we have some players who have been developed in their youth. That’s helped us in areas of knowing where to go on the court, knowing how to fix a broken play, being able to adjust to the ball and just getting us confident in how to work together. That is an area that we were challenged with last year.”

Freshman middle hitter Justus Barbel came to COD to play under Koskinaris after he coached him at West Aurora high school. He said his experience playing high school and club volleyball has brought a different perspective to the team this season.

“The sophomores had a very different experience last year during the first year of the program,” Barbel said. “I feel like they just went through the motions and didn’t really have a gritty season. I know what it takes to win games and stay disciplined. I’ve tried to show both the sophomores and the freshmen that we need to reshape this year into a year of discipline and strength so we could get better.”

Sophomore setter Phurin Kosumapinun was a key player on the men’s team last season and remains a starting player for the Chaparrals. He said the team this season has grown both on and off the court, putting them in a better position to compete at nationals.

“We’re doing much better [this season], as in players are gaining confidence,” Kosumapinun said. “Players are not only becoming better skillfully, but becoming more mature. Our mental toughness has increased, and that’s probably due to growth and personal development on all sides. The coaches have been doing a great job guiding us through that.”

Sophomore setter Bo Parker was another original player from the team’s inaugural season. Experiencing the team’s new intensity firsthand, he expressed that the focus this year is on nationals and that Koskinaris has the team looking forward to that.

“One of the first things our coach said was that he’s playing to win,” Parker said. “He doesn’t care if you’re benched the entire season. He is playing for that national championship.”

Parker listed off-the-court differences the team has made that improved their synergy on the court.

“Last year, we kind of just goofed around and didn’t really know what was going on,” he admitted. “Most of the time we weren’t even warming up as a team. There were little things that might not seem to matter, but it matters.”

Koskinaris stressed that this season is about building off of last year’s growth and winning.

“Last year was the ‘feel-good’ for everybody that was a part of it and helped start it kind of year,” he stated. “There is no doubt about it; this year we’re playing with the purpose to win the national invitational in our gym. Everything is geared towards that.”

The Chaps will host the second NJCAA Invitational tournament on April 12 and 13 at the Physical Education Center.