TROY, Ala. (TROJANVISION) — The Trojan volleyball team took to the court for the first time in front of the Trojan faithful this year.

The exhibition was a warm-up for all the players and also younger players first chance to get a feel for the game at a collegiate level.

“Younger players need to kind of break the ice a little bit,” said Head Coach Josh Lauer. “They’re super excited. They put in a lot of hard work, but you got to get out there and be in your jersey and playing another team.”

Along with new faces, Trojan familiars like Amiah Butler and Kalina Calvillo also shined. Coming off a stellar season with the Trojans last year with 275 kills and 129 digs, Butler was named to the Preseason All Conference Team. This year, fans will see her step into a leadership role.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations with Amiah about how she needs to stay even,” Lauer told TrojanVision. “She’s an emotional player, super competitive, and so she’s holds herself to a high standard, so sometimes gets really hard on herself.

“I think she’s understand how she’s got to let that go, and let the team understand that like, hey, I’m under control. I’ve got this. I have your back. And I thought that she did that well today, and that’s going to be a theme throughout the whole season for her.”

According to Lauer, the mix of veterans and newcomers will be a critical component of this team going forward into the season.

“The journey for this team is going to be incremental as the season goes on. We have a lot of we have a lot of balance between upper classman and underclassmen, but we don’t have a lot of playing time experience right now? We’re a little inexperienced even though we have some older players.

“The people are going to be taking on some bigger roles and things like that, so that’s going to be um that’s going to be progressive as the season goes on.

The Trojans hope to carry this energy to next week when they face Georgia in a Samford Invitational.