The Chico State women’s volleyball team, which is loaded with talent, will be adding six new players to the roster.

The six girls joining the team are Lizzie Wilson, Zoe DiNardo, Lauryn Osendorf, Taylor Whyte, Aubriel Duncan and June Mcnulty.

Wilson comes to Chico from a junior college, San Diego Mesa College, and is looking forward to representing Chico State on the court.

“I was super excited,” Wilson said. “Even though COVID is happening right now, it was still really cool that I got to commit to the team and meet everybody and I’m just really excited to get on the court.”

All CSU campus sports are shut down this semester as COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the state. With no volleyball, the girls are having to find other ways to stay motivated until they can get back on the court and play.

“It’s definitely harder especially with the air quality in Chico right now, but we’ve been running a lot, me and my roommates,” Wilson said. “We have been lifting, doing a lot of at home body workouts. It’s honestly really hard, but we’re just trying to stay positive during this time because we also need to stay in shape because we haven’t played in six months.”

While nothing is written in stone for the spring 2021 semester, the girls are trying to stay hopeful that they’ll be back on the court to play the game they all love.

“It doesn’t look like we have any hope of touching the court this year and if we do, it won’t be a regular season,” DiNardo said. “I’m not very optimistic about getting to play this season.”

Even though the girls are not together on the court playing, they are still finding ways to be active in each other’s lives and establish strong relationships.

“We’ll hang out, watch a movie or have bonding,” DiNardo said. “We have Zoom calls every week with Tommy (head coach) and we text in our group chat. We’re trying to just get to know each other still and see what happens.”

Once the girls get back on the court, they intend to play the game hard and establish goals they have whenever the pandemic turns the corner and allows them to return to action.

Osendorf is joining the volleyball team as a player coming from high school who has a passion for the game and plays hard for her teammates.

“What I love most about it is that it’s the last sport that I started playing,” Osendorf said. “In middle school, I tried volleyball and it was just so fast paced and there’s not been another thing in my life that gives me that satisfaction of hitting the ball or going up for a block.”

Alex Martin can be reached at [email protected] or @alexmartinjour on Twitter.