The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/49933
The Wolfpack set school records for ACC wins (eight), ACC road wins (four) and consecutive wins (13) in 2011 en route to its best season in 15 years. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS MAJOR PROGRESS that had virtually no success for more than a decade. There were five winless seasons in ACC play in the 10 previous years and three more one-win seasons against confer- ence competition. In the two years before the duo arrived, W the NC State volleyball program won just five of 63 matches. In fact, the Wolfpack won just 35 of 224 sets during those two seasons. Yet they chose to come anyway. Salata was an undersized middle blocker from the suburbs of Chicago, searching for a place where she could be a college athlete, just as her older sister had been. Wood, from the North Carolina foothills in Yadkinville, wanted a place she could make her mark in a sport that was growing, but not exactly big, in her home state. 48 ■ THE WOLFPACKER Wolfpack Volleyball Team Posts Record-Setting Season Both of them survived the trying times BY TIM PEELER hen Margaret Salata and Kelly Wood came to NC State four years ago to play volleyball, they signed on to a program that come with failure — including another one-win ACC season during their sopho- more campaign — and a coaching change. Veteran coach Bryan Bunn, who had his roots in Texas and Florida, was hired just after their sophomore seasons to reshape the struggling program. He gave Salata and Wood the opportu- nity to stay with the program. He recruited high school players from across the country to join the squad. And he nabbed a few players who were looking to transfer from other college teams. That's how both Luciana Shafer and Becah Fogle joined Salata and Wood in the 2011 senior class, after transferring from UNC Greensboro and Colorado, respectively. "We came here to make a difference," Salata said. "It's a good feeling knowing that we will go out as winners." After finishing with a 14-18 overall mark and a 4-16 ACC record in Bunn's inau- gural season in 2010, the Wolfpack had a breakthrough campaign this past fall, posting a 20-13 overall record and an 8-12 ACC mark. Along the way, Bunn's Pack set school records for ACC wins (eight), ACC road wins (four) and consecutive wins (13). It had the program's first winning season, first 20-win season and most overall victo- ries since the 1996 squad went 21-16. And it had its best ACC finish (eighth of 12 teams) since 1999. Along the way, Wood became the school's all-time career leader with 1,836 digs. She also had the second-highest sin- gle-season digs total in school history with 527. In her four seasons with the Pack, Wood was a defensive specialist, an outside hitter and a libero. She never missed a prac- tice, and only once was she not on the floor during her time with the Pack, playing in 527 of a possible 528 games, which ranks as the fifth most in school history. Salata, en route to becoming NC State's first All-ACC selection in 13 years, had an impressive senior season. A part-time