Silvernail Has Golden Touch Behind Its Hard-Hitting Junior, WSU Rates Among Nation’s Best

The coach who ever said practice makes perfect sure as heck didn’t have someone like Washington State University volleyball player Sarah Silvernail on his roster.

“You’d never guess I was an All-American candidate by the way I practice,” Silvernail said. “I hate practice. It’s hard to practice. Day-in, day-out, 3 hours a day year-round. I get the adrenaline in the games.”

Most coaches tell athletes their practice habits carry over to the games. But every now and then, there are those who have the ability to turn up the intensity whenever they want. Silvernail is in that category.

With not even half the volleyball season complete, Silvernail, who grew up in Spokane before moving after the eighth-grade, has already been the Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Week twice this season.

Incredible talent and a charismatic personality to go along with it, well, depending on the athlete, the combination can make for a coach’s worst nightmare.

“I have to reel her in just about everyday,” WSU coach Cindy Fredrick said of the 20-year-old junior outside hitter. “But Sarah understands what we’re trying to do here. She doesn’t get away with a lot of things with me.”

Silvernail is the blonde bomber among the “Baby Bombers,” the nickname Fredrick has given her young team.

Silvernail is a vital part of a WSU team that has jumped out to an 11-0 record, the best start in the history of the school’s volleyball program.

The Cougars, ranked No. 11 nationally by Volleyball magazine and No. 12 in the USA Today/ American Volleyball Coaches Association poll last week, have defeated top-20 teams in their last four matches. And they have another on tap Wednesday night. The University of Washington, ranked 21st, visits Bohler Gym at 7.

Then on Saturday, Idaho, which knocked off the Cougars a year ago, visits Bohler, also at 7. UI received enough support in the coaches’ poll that it would be ranked 30th. Only 25 are rated. This week’s poll will be out today.

Silvernail caught Fredrick’s eye when she was a junior at Eisenhower High in Yakima. Fredrick went to scout one of Silvernail’s teammates, but Sarah ended up stealing the show.

“The first time I saw her I said to myself, ‘I want her.’ She’s very physical and athletic. She’s 6-foot-2 with a 28-inch vertical leap.”

Silvernail played three years at Eisenhower before transferring and graduating from Fife in the Tacoma area.

In her first year with the Cougars, she was named to the Pac-10 All-Freshman team. In her second year, she made the all-conference team, and this past summer, she grabbed a gold medal in the U.S. Olympic Festival at Boulder, Colo.

And even though she played four years of high school volleyball, with two of them on state championship teams, Silvernail said she really didn’t know much about the game until she got to Pullman.

“Cindy and Farok (assistant coach Mashallah Farokhmanesh) have taught me everything I know about the game. They are the first real coaches I have had.”

Now although Silvernail grabs the majority of individual player headlines generated by the team, she does not shoulder the burden of having to carry the ‘95 Cougars.

Sophomores Shannon Wyckoff and Keren Oigman are the co-captains.

“The leadership is spread out to everybody because this is such a balanced team,” Silvernail said. “It comes from absolutely everyone. Most of us carried our teams in high school. Together, we all carry each other.

“We all worked really hard with each other during the off-season and our goal is to finish in the top five in the conference.”

For now, though, Fredrick is instilling in her players the need to take one match at a time.

“I’m not into predicting the future,” Fredrick said. “This is a smart team and it’s a competitive team. We’re all in this together and on the same page.”

But in a short period of time, Sarah Silvernail has already written her own chapter in WSU volleyball history.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SERVING IT UP Upcoming matches this week at WSU’s Bohler Gym: Wednesday: vs. UW at 7 p.m. Saturday: vs. Idaho at 7 p.m.