SIU’s volleyball team was picked to finish fifth in the Missouri Valley Conference, but the players want to prove the polls wrong.

The Salukis made the conference championship match as the third seed of the tournament last year, but fell 3-0 to Wichita State University.

The team has 11 returning players, including All-Conference junior hitter Taylor Pippen. The Salukis added six freshmen as well.

“With the experience, others do maybe look up to me,” Pippen said. “I’m able to kind of help out the others, because I have been here the longest. But I think each person is able to kind of look at each other and help each other out.”

Pippen and sophomore setter Hannah Kaminsky were named to the Preseason All-Conference team. Kaminsky was named the 2013 MVC Freshman of the Year. She was named to 2013 All-Freshman team, along with sophomore setter and hitter Meg Viggars.

Coach Justin Ingram said there is a foundation in place with the returning players. He said the new faces build on that and will help SIU become nationally recognized within the next few years.

“The team is talented,” Ingram said. “We know we can beat a lot of people and we know they can beat us, because we’re not that good yet.”

All the freshmen, except outside hitter Nellie Fredriksson, who was still attending school in Sweden, attended summer classes. Freshman outside hitter Abby Barrow said it helped build team chemistry.

“When they got here they probably realized that the game is a lot faster in college,” Pippen said. “We play with a really fast offense so I think that was probably different from back where they used to play.”

Barrow said her busy schedule mostly kept her away from home this summer.

“I was actually still playing in my high school sectional softball game,” Barrow said. “When we lost that game, I came right here.”

Ingram said the administration is one of the best things about SIU because it supports programs to help the freshmen make the transition.

“The administration helps provide some summer school opportunities for our athletes,” Ingram said. “We had 17 players here this summer.”

Viggars said the new faces complement the returning ones. “It doesn’t even feel like they’re new,” Viggars said. “It’s just they’re part of the team and they’ve always been here with us.”

The team has its first match at 4 p.m. Friday against the University of North Carolina in the Illini Classic in Champaign.

“There’s so many unknowns that the first match is almost a blind match,” Ingram said. “To where you go in and you lace them up, and you get after it. Whoever plays better at that point wins the match.”

The team plays the University of Illinois at 10 a.m. and California State University Long Beach at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

“Each and every match that we progress towards, the teams in the country will know more and more about us,” Ingram said. “We’ll know more and more about them as well.”