SAN DIEGO—How do you prepare for a season that has no start date? How do you stay motivated, let alone focused in the face of a five-month delay?
           
Jennifer Petrie, usually businesslike when it comes to talking volleyball, laughs as she considers the unusual nature of the situation; months on the calendar flipping by without any semblance of certainty for her program. Her contemplation registers even through an iPhone speaker during a recent phone interview.
 
"That has been a very challenging aspect to this, trying to navigate the fact that we didn't know exactly when we would start," said Petrie, who is now in her 22nd year as San Diego's head coach. "We just took it one day at a time, knowing that the ultimate goal is to get better every day."
 
One day at a time ended up lasting longer than most would have imagined. 
 
Last July faded into August as hopes for a normal 2020 season officially faded away. 
 
September saw some students return to campus and the team return to the gym for the semester — still without an idea of when they might play again. 
           
The Jenny Craig Pavilion's scariest Halloween costumes this October: volleyball players deprived of a chance to defend their conference championship.
           
November: The Toreros thankful to be healthy and practicing together, but penciling in a return-to-play plan on their holiday wish lists. 
           
But now, after a tumultuous and extended offseason characterized by 2020's trademark uncertainty, the Toreros finally do know when their season will begin. More than six months after the West Coast Conference postponed fall sports back in July due to the coronavirus pandemic, San Diego volleyball is slated to return to the hardwood on February 7, their defense of 2019's WCC Championship beginning against Saint Mary's.
 
Peculiarities surrounding the season abound. If all goes as planned, 426 days will have elapsed since the Toreros' last match when the first serve crosses over the net in the JCP, setting the "2020" season into motion roughly 150 days late.
 
To mitigate virus concerns, WCC play will feature teams facing off in a pair of matches on back-to-back days at a single designated site rather than the usual nine home-and-home series. Travel partners—for the Toreros, that's conference rival BYU—will face each other once at each team's home venue.
 
 "It's a new puzzle, that's the exciting part," Petrie said of the modifications to the conference schedule. "We have to figure out a new way to win."
           
The uniqueness of San Diego volleyball's upcoming campaign should not overshadow what figures to be a special, motivated group. While both the format and the calendar will be different when the season begins, many of the components that led the Toreros to a conference title and the second round of the NCAA Tournament last year remain, including 2019 WCC Freshman of the Year Grace Frohling.
 
"We definitely have a lot of returners coming back, especially on the outside," said the 6-foot-5 opposite, who showed uncommon poise in her first college season. "There's a lot of competitiveness in the gym…I think we're confident that no matter what, any one of us can step into our positions and take care of it."
           
Frohling and the four other returning starters — senior outside hitter Roxie Wiblin, graduate student/outside hitter Thana Fayad, junior libero Annie Benbow and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Lauren Turner — will look to replicate the success of a well-rounded 2019 USD team that finished either first or second in seven of the 12 statistical categories the WCC tracks. They will attempt to do so after losing reigning WCC Setter of the Year Anna Newsome and All-WCC middle blocker Megan Jacobsen to graduation, the former of whom finished her career ranked among the top 10 Toreros in career assists, the latter of whom ranked in the top-10 in the nation in hitting percentage as a keystone of last year's USD offense.
 
The Toreros will also be without a longtime presence on their bench, as associate head coach Brent Hilliard departed the program last spring after 19 seasons to take the head coaching position at San Diego State. 
           
Still, expectations are high in the JCP, as they always are, and Petrie hopes to lean on the battle-tested nature of her roster to push the team through an unconventional season. 
 
"This team is not rebuilding, that's for certain," the six-time WCC Coach of the Year says of her 2021 squad. "Grace Frohling was the freshman of the year in the conference and our region, Katie Lukes and Thana and Roxie are all really veterans on the outside, and Annie really has a lot of experience as well. We have so much firepower that has played in so many high-level matches."
 
Petrie's aforementioned veterans will be joined by several fresh faces in their pursuit of an 11th consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance for the program. Some, like freshmen Kylie Pries, Alex Hoglund, and Elly Schraeder — who all joined the team back in August — have had a chance to prove themselves in the extended offseason that they originally wouldn't have received. In a typical season, freshmen arrive on campus late in the summer and get just two weeks to acclimate to the college level. 
 
New associate head coach Alfred Reft, who brings a wealth of championship-level volleyball experience to San Diego, has enjoyed a similarly extended chance to integrate himself into the Torero program before the season begins, a transition players have described as seamless while noting his intensity and high standards during practice. 
 
Other newcomers, like recent transfers Gabby Goddard (Kentucky) and Isadora Terçariol (Bauru, Säo Paulo, Brazil), have been with the team for less than a month. All of the offseason additions to the program, however, are expected to make an impact this year. 
           
"Every single practice, we're pushing each other hard," Wiblin said. "We're trying to get better, we're trying to fight for those spots, there's a lot of competition there. Competition breeds success, and it will push you further than you think you can go."
 
Once the preseason position battles are settled and the starting lineup is set, look for a slightly different style of play for the Toreros in 2021 as they re-tool their offense.
           
"Offensively we should see some similarities, but also some differences with Megan Jacobsen leaving a big hole in the middle," Petrie said. "We've got some kids to step into those shoes. It's exciting because with (junior setter) Laura Madill, we kind of have a new 'quarterback' coming into this competitive season."
           
And on defense, San Diego will also fine-tune what was a dominant aspect of their team last season while continuing to make the most of libero Annie Benbow's consistency.
           
"Our defensive scheme will look a lot different," Petrie said. "We've really changed our blocking strategies."
           
With their customarily rigorous non-conference schedule set aside because of the pandemic, the Toreros have been able to fully turn their attention to their conference slate, tasked with the daunting prospect of improving upon the 17-1 WCC record they achieved last season. For San Diego, of course, it's all a matter of perspective.
           
"In the WCC, there's a big challenge in just taking care of the teams that need to be taken care of and not underestimating any single opponent," Wiblin said. "We just have to take care of business and focus on our biggest opponents."
           
In one of the countless interesting twists that the pandemic-altered season has provided thus far, the Toreros' regular travel partner BYU will be San Diego's lone home-and-home series of the spring. The Toreros and Cougars have battled for the conference crown in recent years, with one or both teams hoisting the trophy in nine of the last 10 seasons.
           
"Obviously BYU is our biggest rival, we love playing them every year," Wiblin said. "They're still on our radar, they lost a couple of their best players, but you can never count them out. Odds are we will be on the same plane as them, the same schedule as them, so that should be kind of interesting and funny if it all works out because they're our biggest rival, but they're also all really nice."
           
In the midst of an offseason that at one point had no clear end date, in the midst of what ended up being a five-month delay before the "2020" season could begin, each of San Diego volleyball's nine returning players received a special gift. Masked and socially distant, USD President James T. Harris III and senior athletic department staff joined the team during a late October practice to present them with their 2019 WCC Championship rings. Bursting with both clear and Torero-blue diamonds set against an opulent gold "2019 WCC CHAMPIONS," the celebratory jewelry offered both a symbol of USD's dominance a season ago and a bright spot in a muted winter for the team.
           
"(The ring) is very humongous," said Wiblin, who also earned a conference championship ring in 2017. "My one from my freshman year was about half the size, and that was totally on purpose. Jen (Petrie) asked us what kind of rings we wanted, and we said we wanted the biggest, 'blingiest' things they have — that's something we take a lot of pride in."
           
The impetus for 2021, then, is clear. 
           
Go win another one.