To kick off the 2023, I sat down tonight at the team hotel to have conversations with returning setters Maddy Bourque and Jayden Flynn. You can watch each of the interviews at these links:
Bourque enters her senior season having compiled 1626 career assists, a tally good for 9th all time at SFA. Flynn, a sophomore, put down 48 aces in her freshman season spawning a Twitter (now X) hashtag #InLikeFlynn for dropping in serves just inside the end line. Her family and friends picked up the tag, ran with with it, made T-Shirts and well, the rest is history they say. Or at least these setters intend to keep writing it going into 2023 after leading their club the NCAA Tournament last season.
Bourque is from Yorkville, Illinois which is west of Chicago, Aurora and Naperville and Flynn hails from Poplar Grove which is east of Rockford and relatively near the Illinois/Wisconsin border. But, since we get our setters from Illinois, we might as well make it a trifecta. When the incoming class of 2023 arrived, a third setter was part of the crew and you guessed it - she's from Illinois. Sam Hovey, a junior college transfer, will back up the Bourque/Flynn 6-2 duo and she is listed from Makinaw, Illinois which is more remote than the areas already mentioned but southeast of Peoria.
I hope you enjoy the interviews with Maddy and Jayden as well as the first weekend of radio broadcasts. South Alabama will provide their ESPN+ coverage of our match at 6:00 PM on Friday, but again, the radio stream is also available if you want to overlay it, or are on the go or just prefer the audio feel for the game. The radio delivery for the matches against Jackson State on Friday morning and Tulane on Saturday will be the only media available.