The whiteboard at USF volleyball practice is marked up by drills and formations. In the top left corner is one quote.
It’s the most fitting mantra for the Dons.
They went 0-25 a season ago. Their last victory came on March 26, 2021, the end of a grueling spring campaign amid the pandemic. They won 11 sets the entirety of the 2021 fall season.
Now USF is 7-1 after winning its first six matches in its best start to a season since 2015 and fourth best start in program history.
“We have a plan,” said second-year head coach Diogo Silva. “I think we have talent. It was a very hard year for everyone, and if they took that and learned, that’s awesome. But I feel like everyone is comfortable with the new people on the team, too.”
Orsula Staka, the lone senior on the USF volleyball roster, falls just short of admitting surprise for how the start of the season has gone but said each victory brings an emotional release.
“It can’t be worse than last year,” Staka said. “There is pressure to show we worked really hard and gave the whole spring and summer to fixing it, and show everyone we can do it.”
When Isadora Nicolai was looking to transfer for her graduate season, something about USF stood out. Despite the daunting prospect of joining a team whose previous season was the worst in program history, she felt it was a worthy project.
“I trusted what the coaches told me,” she said. “He knew it was a project, and said things were going to happen here.”
Nicolai, out of Auburn University at Montgomery, is one of three grad transfers on the roster. Starter Claire Crijns came from the Netherlands, and Anna Petrova transferred from UConn.
USF took its first loss on Friday against Cal State Northridge, a 3-2 heartbreaker in five sets where it had led 2-0 and reached match point a few times.
Saturday against Penn, that could have spiraled after the Dons built another 2-0 lead. But they learned from their mistake. The third set was the most competitive, going back-and-forth until USF pulled away to claim the sweep. It marked a sure sign of progress from last season.
“After last season, we’re giving it all we have,” sophomore Shiya Richardson said.
Staka has yet to see a winning season: The Dons went 8-21 her freshman year, followed by an 8-10 spring season, then the disastrous fall 2021.
“We want to fix what happened last year,” Staka said.
USF traveled to Bozeman, Mont., to begin this season with a three-match tournament. In their opener against host Montana State, the Dons went down 2-0. They had seen this story before.
“I knew I had to keep calm or the team is gonna get nervous,” Silva said.
Something was different, though. Instead of faltering, the Dons played two tight sets with a calm confidence, and then won the fifth one 15-9.
“I was happy because the wins didn’t start that day. It starts with recruiting and making the team,” Sliva said. “Then we can achieve what we put to work.”
It was the first win in more than a year, and the first for Silva since being named head coach.
“Everyone was crying,” said freshman libero Abby Wadas.
It was a moment of relief and catharsis for a program that was gutted during the pandemic and has exhibited one of the youngest rosters in the country. When talking about why last year was a struggle, every returner has highlighted how new everyone was.
This year has new faces too, between Wadas, who starts, and the three grad transfers, but the closeness formed through adversity has changed the culture.
“This is what we’ve been preparing for,” Richardson said.
The Dons have a quiet confidence and there is an expectation of success. But if they fall short, the progress in Silva’s second season — and first without COVID restrictions — will be marked by something different.
“That they don’t want to take off their jersey,” Silva said. “I want that they have that feeling, even if we lose the last match, that they don’t want it to finish.”
The Dons won more sets four games in than they had all of last season. They’ve won in every way you can to start the season; sweeps, come-from-behind epics, and dramatic, five-set victories.
USF’s true identity might not reveal itself until conference play begins and the Dons try to make a postseason run, something that weeks ago wasn’t even on the radar.
“Coach has a saying,” Staka said, quoting the whiteboard. “You are not too good when you win and you are not too bad when you lose. We live by that.”
The message has gotten through. The Dons were noticeably loose when playing and after their match against Penn. Even following the first loss of the season the day prior, they were devoid of tension.
“It’s almost like we have nothing to lose,” Wadas said. “I want the team to be doing well, but we can literally only go up.”
Marisa Ingemi is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: marisa.ingemi@sfchronicle.com
