So the illness bug has come around and hit us pretty hard the past week. We were going to through practices the past week with 8-10 people out for every practice. It was one of those moments as a coach where it is certainly the time to have your adaptability skills at their best. At the start of the we all felt great about some good performances from the weekend in Sioux City. But something was a little off on Monday as I felt a lot of our players kind of dragging and very low with energy. Then it started 1 by 1 the information kept coming me, this 2 has this illness, this 2 have this, and these 3 possibly have this. It was like it never ended, well it seemed like it because Jayna kept pretending to be sick with her fake cough (keep practicing, Neba. lol).
So Monday we tried to prepare for Dordt with what we had. We still felt pretty good about what we could do in that match. The very next day we got word that Carina was sick with something that had to hold her out for the match and not let her travel. So immediately I had to let Kalissa and Rosebud know that they would have to fill in and that our gameplan has now been switched to a 6-2 setup and our lineup would be very different than we practiced. It was hectic leading up to our arrival to Dordt. We had some people playing in the JV match that hadn't played before and made a true sacrifice and commitment to the team to get it done (Thank you Leah for stepping up all week). The JV match was a little rough as Dordt took the match fairly easily as our serve receive passing just wasn't up to par all match.
The varsity match was probably a little nerve racking for everyone as we weren't exactly sure how we would respond to the adversity we were facing with a limited roster. My only concern of the night came when we dropped 4 of the first 5 points of the match with no intensity, I had to quickly call a timeout and remedy the situation. We then came back to to the game and go point for point the rest of game. The first game even had probably one of the best rallies that any of us had been a part of playing or coaching. It lasted about a minute and included:
- First attack saved by player with over the shoulder swing with back to net and at sharp angle
- Hard swing dug and ball saved from 25ft away from court off of a light fixture and sent over as other team was celebrating
- Celebrating team saves ball and gets another attack
- Play proceeds to have 2 diving plays to the right back corner from both team's middle back players
- A sideline diving save by a libero after one of the diving plays in the right back is sent over
- A double block that is covered and continued play
- Overpass kill to finish play
I am putting this rally in a Play of the Week contest sponsored by the AVCA. Voting will begin I think on Thursday so please check out http://www.avca.org/ to vote for our play if it makes the final cut. I darn well better since in comparison to the plays from last week, this one blows all of them out of the water.
Ok, getting back to the actual playing. The Dordt match went very well. We played great under the circumstances and handled everything Dordt threw at us. We just gave away one 4-5 point run too many in all 3 games which ended up being the difference in each game. The team proved again that they are worthy of being put in to a higher category than anyone else puts them and that they just need to find a level of consistency with intensity and decision making that keeps them at the top of their game all match long. It was great to see. Kalissa and Bud deserve a lot of kudos for stepping in with basically same day notice to handle a difficult setting job against a top team in the conference.
We ended up deciding that this was going to be the week of recovery. We felt fortunate that we only had one match on Friday and nothing else the rest of the weekend. We had the confident feeling that with the one match on Friday being against Mt. Marty and that we had 2 days to prepare we could get back to healthy and not over exert ourselves as program. Our recovery was slow and we didn't get back to full strength by Friday. We came out a little flat agianst Mt. Marty with a lot of errors from our JV team in their match which ended up costing them a 3 game loss. However, Polly did play a good MH position (which she hasn't done since HS) while Rosebud and Kalissa did an admirable job of trying to put our hitters into good situations to swing at a smaller Mt. Marty block.
Carina was cleared to play but we needed to limit her involvement. Leah again stepped up to the plate and started at MH for us in place of a sick Kacie. The start of the varsity match was very nerve racking as we came out flat and committed a lot of hitting and serving errors in the first game which gave Mt. Marty half of there points for the game. We found a way to win the first game which then led into a completely dominating performance in game 2 which then allowed us to use our bench more and save energy of our sick players. It was a great team effort.
Over the week we put together two very good TEAM performances and had some people in some different setups for our lineup. The sacrifice and commitment level was very apparent last week from everyone. We will need again for the upcoming week as we are still within our recovery phase. We play at Dakota State on Tuesday and then host Morningside for our Homecoming match on Friday and then Briar Cliff on Saturday for our DIG PINK match. To support the DIG PINK effort please follow the volleyball website http://www.dwu.edu/athletics/volleyball/index.htm and click on the Dig Pink logo to get to the place where you can donate to the cause.
- Coach V
September 28, 2009
September 21, 2009
Week #4 - A Refocus on Performance
Hello everyone,
This was one crazy week, with a complete collapse in our conference match with Sioux Falls on Wednesday and then taking a set away from Morningside on Friday, it is still plain to see that we are still searching for that consistent performance.
The week didn't start off very well as we approached the match on Wednesday vs. Sioux Falls as a rivalry match. The entire 2 practices leading up to it we talked about bringing every bit of energy to the match and stay focused. Unfortunately we didn't get either one throughout the match and very simply got embarrassed on our home court. After that match we had a lot of things to figure out and it seemed as some doubt may have started to creep in to the minds of the team. We began to squash that mentality right away with our focus on our responsibilities and performances on the court and not worry so much on the end result.
It seemed to pay off as we entered the weekend tournament at Morningside College on Friday with our first match being against #10 in the nation Morningside. I am not going to lie I was very nervous about this match and how the team would respond after the debacle on Wednesday. The first set of the match however, was not so great as we came out flat and seemed uninspired and again quiet on the floor and went on to lose the game 25-11. For the second set some lineup changes were made and there was an instant lift in morale on the court as went on to just dominate the game from the start to a 25-16 win. We continued to play very well the last two games of the match and the game scores don't reflect the true level of the match due to us not winning the long rallies that happened in those games and some very questionable referee calls that ended a lot of long rallies in Morningside's favor (it had to be at least 5 -7 calls per game that were questionable and went against us) but no excuses because we still made our fair share of mistakes and had quite a few hitting errors that really hurts you when you play a top ranked team. We felt good about ourselves knowing that we do have it in us to play like a Top 25 team, we just need to find the consistency in our game to extend for 3 games and not just 1.
Our 2nd match on Friday was against York College. Who we played 3 times last year and won 3-0 each time. This year was no different story as we put out one of our best team hitting performances on the year with a .340 percentage. All 15 players who travelled got into this match and made very good contributions to the great PERFORMANCE. Kalissa Wade came off the bench to add 5 assists and a service ace. Amanda Aman provided 3 kills and Cassie Brinker added 2 digs in her time on the court. We looked to continue the momentum from this match to the next morning as we looked to play Missouri Valley in our last pool play match.
We knew coming into our morning match that it was going to be a well fought match as we saw Missouri Valley the night before take Morningside to 4 games and competed with them in almost all of the games. We came in knowing that we would have to defend the middle attack extremely well (something we had not done well the entire season leading up to this match). Our focus again was just on our performance and taking care of individual responsibilities. Both teams came out ready and full of energy for the match as the points just kept trading back and forth up until we finally put our clamp on the first game with a good 4 point run to finish off the 1st game for a 25-19 win. The 2nd game saw MV take the game with a 22-25 win with a better defensive performance and them putting down a few more balls in the middle. We again refocused on defending the middle attack and we pushed to win the next two games to win the match. We got a fantastic attacking performance as a team with a .285 percentage and defensive effort that held MV to only a .085 hitting percentage. This was a complete offensive and defensive match for us. Jen Miner lead the way with 19 kills and hit .548 and 12 digs, followed by Ashley Kley with 14 kills and a .285 percentage with 14 digs. Kacie Sanderson and Jayna Morrill had quality matches as they had 5 and 8 kills and each took part in at least 3 blocks. We got the first double digit dig match out of Carina Fesenmaier with 11 digs as she also totaled 45 assists in the match. Defensively Polly Gill and Brooke Warne were fantastic with 10 digs a piece.
Once pool play was over we found out that we were going to be playing Hastings in the 3rd place match. I liked our match-up heading into this game knowing that they were much taller than us on the right side and in the middle but they play a majority of freshmen and sophomores. I felt that their lack of quality serve receive would put them in trouble and have their young players have to make big plays in tight situations. We served very well and had them out of system quite a bit but our defense against their hitters was not overly aggressive as we only forced their hitters into 9 total errors and we committed 24 hitting errors. It was the complete difference in the match, they kept plays alive and we gave away points. It was surprising after the quality offensive decisions we had had the previous 2 matches to drop back down under a .100 hitting percentage. Yes Hastings was a higher quality team than the other two but our focus on performance was better in the other matches. We're learning and still finding that comfort level with each other.
All in all it was a very good weekend for us after the shocking disappointment from Wednesday. We are truly learning more and more about ourselves everyday and continuing to get that everyday improvement. I want to congratulate Ashley Kley for making the All-Tournament Team which was voted on by the other coaches in the tournament.
We have a short week next week as we face Dordt on Tuesday and Mt. Marty on Friday. With a true focus on Performance and never say die attitude we could very well go 2-0 for the week and put ourselves back into a good place with the conference standings.
Get Better Every Day
--Coach V
This was one crazy week, with a complete collapse in our conference match with Sioux Falls on Wednesday and then taking a set away from Morningside on Friday, it is still plain to see that we are still searching for that consistent performance.
The week didn't start off very well as we approached the match on Wednesday vs. Sioux Falls as a rivalry match. The entire 2 practices leading up to it we talked about bringing every bit of energy to the match and stay focused. Unfortunately we didn't get either one throughout the match and very simply got embarrassed on our home court. After that match we had a lot of things to figure out and it seemed as some doubt may have started to creep in to the minds of the team. We began to squash that mentality right away with our focus on our responsibilities and performances on the court and not worry so much on the end result.
It seemed to pay off as we entered the weekend tournament at Morningside College on Friday with our first match being against #10 in the nation Morningside. I am not going to lie I was very nervous about this match and how the team would respond after the debacle on Wednesday. The first set of the match however, was not so great as we came out flat and seemed uninspired and again quiet on the floor and went on to lose the game 25-11. For the second set some lineup changes were made and there was an instant lift in morale on the court as went on to just dominate the game from the start to a 25-16 win. We continued to play very well the last two games of the match and the game scores don't reflect the true level of the match due to us not winning the long rallies that happened in those games and some very questionable referee calls that ended a lot of long rallies in Morningside's favor (it had to be at least 5 -7 calls per game that were questionable and went against us) but no excuses because we still made our fair share of mistakes and had quite a few hitting errors that really hurts you when you play a top ranked team. We felt good about ourselves knowing that we do have it in us to play like a Top 25 team, we just need to find the consistency in our game to extend for 3 games and not just 1.
Our 2nd match on Friday was against York College. Who we played 3 times last year and won 3-0 each time. This year was no different story as we put out one of our best team hitting performances on the year with a .340 percentage. All 15 players who travelled got into this match and made very good contributions to the great PERFORMANCE. Kalissa Wade came off the bench to add 5 assists and a service ace. Amanda Aman provided 3 kills and Cassie Brinker added 2 digs in her time on the court. We looked to continue the momentum from this match to the next morning as we looked to play Missouri Valley in our last pool play match.
We knew coming into our morning match that it was going to be a well fought match as we saw Missouri Valley the night before take Morningside to 4 games and competed with them in almost all of the games. We came in knowing that we would have to defend the middle attack extremely well (something we had not done well the entire season leading up to this match). Our focus again was just on our performance and taking care of individual responsibilities. Both teams came out ready and full of energy for the match as the points just kept trading back and forth up until we finally put our clamp on the first game with a good 4 point run to finish off the 1st game for a 25-19 win. The 2nd game saw MV take the game with a 22-25 win with a better defensive performance and them putting down a few more balls in the middle. We again refocused on defending the middle attack and we pushed to win the next two games to win the match. We got a fantastic attacking performance as a team with a .285 percentage and defensive effort that held MV to only a .085 hitting percentage. This was a complete offensive and defensive match for us. Jen Miner lead the way with 19 kills and hit .548 and 12 digs, followed by Ashley Kley with 14 kills and a .285 percentage with 14 digs. Kacie Sanderson and Jayna Morrill had quality matches as they had 5 and 8 kills and each took part in at least 3 blocks. We got the first double digit dig match out of Carina Fesenmaier with 11 digs as she also totaled 45 assists in the match. Defensively Polly Gill and Brooke Warne were fantastic with 10 digs a piece.
Once pool play was over we found out that we were going to be playing Hastings in the 3rd place match. I liked our match-up heading into this game knowing that they were much taller than us on the right side and in the middle but they play a majority of freshmen and sophomores. I felt that their lack of quality serve receive would put them in trouble and have their young players have to make big plays in tight situations. We served very well and had them out of system quite a bit but our defense against their hitters was not overly aggressive as we only forced their hitters into 9 total errors and we committed 24 hitting errors. It was the complete difference in the match, they kept plays alive and we gave away points. It was surprising after the quality offensive decisions we had had the previous 2 matches to drop back down under a .100 hitting percentage. Yes Hastings was a higher quality team than the other two but our focus on performance was better in the other matches. We're learning and still finding that comfort level with each other.
All in all it was a very good weekend for us after the shocking disappointment from Wednesday. We are truly learning more and more about ourselves everyday and continuing to get that everyday improvement. I want to congratulate Ashley Kley for making the All-Tournament Team which was voted on by the other coaches in the tournament.
We have a short week next week as we face Dordt on Tuesday and Mt. Marty on Friday. With a true focus on Performance and never say die attitude we could very well go 2-0 for the week and put ourselves back into a good place with the conference standings.
Get Better Every Day
--Coach V
September 14, 2009
Week #3 - The Roller Coaster Week
It was a roller coaster week for us this past week. We had some very positive moments and some negative ones as well. The trials and tribulations of a program in transition.
We started off with a very good showing against #5 in the nation, Northwestern. We competed very well and held a few leads in all 3 games of the match. We just couldn't hold off Northwestern's fire power in the end. They are loaded with talent at every position. Game 1 and game 2 were in our grasps and we tightened up just a little at the end of each game to let Northwestern take the late momentum of each game. We forced them into some attacking situations they weren't comfortable with at first and got them to commit a few errors early in every set. We will continue to learn how to close out games against high caliber teams here in the near future.
The weekend took us on the road to North Dakota. We opened the weekend off with Valley City State. If you remember we went 5 games with them the first weekend of the season as we were down 2-0 and came back to win the match. This time we were on their turf and in some hostile confines. Their gym was a great atmosphere, it was small, very old-school with brick walls all around us, and extremely loud. It was so fun. We went 5 the first time so why not 5 a second time. Yes we did, another 5 gamer that fortunately ended with another DWU win. It was one heck of a match. Both teams came to play offensively as both hit over .200 for the match. It was a match of will power as both teams kept trading big play after big play. VCSU served extremely aggressive and kept our serve receive out of whack all match. Luckily Ashley Kley, Jen Miner, and Polly Gill were up to the challenge of attacking against a double block all night and all had great success as all 3 were in double digit kills for the night. These three plus Amye Brown were also in double digit digs for the night. Ashley led the way with 24 digs. What a great accomplishment to have 3 players get double-doubles in the same match. Congrats ladies.
After riding the wonderful highs of competing well against Northwestern and winning another thrilling match in 5 against Valley City. We headed to Mayville State on Saturday to try and start another winning streak to give us momentum into our next conference match. However, it was not in cards for us as Mayville State came in with a complete revenge factor from the opening match of the year loss we gave them in the opening weekend. MSU came out with tons of energy and a game plan that we couldn't find enough adjustments for to stop. With our execution of our game plan being on the poor end we were in a scramble mode all day and just never looked comfortable on the court. With that said we still were in every game and many opportunities to put our strangle hold on the matches but that one extra play a team needs to fully gain momentum we just couldn't make. We didn't defend well enough to win the matches. It is not all for lost though, we still had some pretty good attacking numbers and our serve receive passing was much better than it was on Friday night. It was a great learning experience for the team this weekend and we plan to move ahead with some great experiences.
It became one of those reality check weekends for us. We faced two teams we had faced earlier and beat, both of those teams came out very hungry to revenge their losses and showed us that we still have to step up our performance from the previous matches to get the next win. It is also very clear that we are as successful as our defense. In all of our match losses so far this season we struggled with preventing our opponent from high hitting percentages. Defense is a part of our signature style of play, we have slightly gotten away from that with the success we have had offensively. It is time to reset our systems and get back to fundamentals of great TEAM DEFENSE.
I am still very happy and confident with this group of talented women. We still have very positive things going on and great team chemistry. I told the team that we will go through these growing pains during the first part of the season as we try to mesh the old with the new. We don't need to be playing at our peak performance level just yet. We want to save it for that stretch run and the end of conference play heading into the conference tournament. We will make some noise and give headaches to a lot of top GPAC teams. WE BELIEVE IN US!
--Coach V
We started off with a very good showing against #5 in the nation, Northwestern. We competed very well and held a few leads in all 3 games of the match. We just couldn't hold off Northwestern's fire power in the end. They are loaded with talent at every position. Game 1 and game 2 were in our grasps and we tightened up just a little at the end of each game to let Northwestern take the late momentum of each game. We forced them into some attacking situations they weren't comfortable with at first and got them to commit a few errors early in every set. We will continue to learn how to close out games against high caliber teams here in the near future.
The weekend took us on the road to North Dakota. We opened the weekend off with Valley City State. If you remember we went 5 games with them the first weekend of the season as we were down 2-0 and came back to win the match. This time we were on their turf and in some hostile confines. Their gym was a great atmosphere, it was small, very old-school with brick walls all around us, and extremely loud. It was so fun. We went 5 the first time so why not 5 a second time. Yes we did, another 5 gamer that fortunately ended with another DWU win. It was one heck of a match. Both teams came to play offensively as both hit over .200 for the match. It was a match of will power as both teams kept trading big play after big play. VCSU served extremely aggressive and kept our serve receive out of whack all match. Luckily Ashley Kley, Jen Miner, and Polly Gill were up to the challenge of attacking against a double block all night and all had great success as all 3 were in double digit kills for the night. These three plus Amye Brown were also in double digit digs for the night. Ashley led the way with 24 digs. What a great accomplishment to have 3 players get double-doubles in the same match. Congrats ladies.
After riding the wonderful highs of competing well against Northwestern and winning another thrilling match in 5 against Valley City. We headed to Mayville State on Saturday to try and start another winning streak to give us momentum into our next conference match. However, it was not in cards for us as Mayville State came in with a complete revenge factor from the opening match of the year loss we gave them in the opening weekend. MSU came out with tons of energy and a game plan that we couldn't find enough adjustments for to stop. With our execution of our game plan being on the poor end we were in a scramble mode all day and just never looked comfortable on the court. With that said we still were in every game and many opportunities to put our strangle hold on the matches but that one extra play a team needs to fully gain momentum we just couldn't make. We didn't defend well enough to win the matches. It is not all for lost though, we still had some pretty good attacking numbers and our serve receive passing was much better than it was on Friday night. It was a great learning experience for the team this weekend and we plan to move ahead with some great experiences.
It became one of those reality check weekends for us. We faced two teams we had faced earlier and beat, both of those teams came out very hungry to revenge their losses and showed us that we still have to step up our performance from the previous matches to get the next win. It is also very clear that we are as successful as our defense. In all of our match losses so far this season we struggled with preventing our opponent from high hitting percentages. Defense is a part of our signature style of play, we have slightly gotten away from that with the success we have had offensively. It is time to reset our systems and get back to fundamentals of great TEAM DEFENSE.
I am still very happy and confident with this group of talented women. We still have very positive things going on and great team chemistry. I told the team that we will go through these growing pains during the first part of the season as we try to mesh the old with the new. We don't need to be playing at our peak performance level just yet. We want to save it for that stretch run and the end of conference play heading into the conference tournament. We will make some noise and give headaches to a lot of top GPAC teams. WE BELIEVE IN US!
--Coach V
September 7, 2009
Week #2 Update - Getting Better Every Day
Hello All,
Another week in the books and another solid showing for DWU Volleyball. We started the first week of September off by traveling to Aberdeen, SD for a match. Our JV team played against North Dakota State College of Science for their first match of the year prior to the Varsity team playing against Presentation College. The JV match was a little shaky but we still had some great play out of Kalissa Wade who set a 5-1 offense and delivered some great sets to our hitters. Our hitters had a small case of the yips and allowed NDSCS to get out to early leads in the 3 games. Overall it was not a bad showing for the first match of the year and we still expect great things for this group throughout the season.
The Varsity team came out a little slow against Presentation and trailed most of the first game and then decided to turn it on to take the first game 28-26 (ladies please stop trying to give me more grey hairs I already have plenty). We then went on to control the rest of the match rather easily as we cruised to the 3-0 win. It was a good match to set us up for the upcoming home tournament.
On Friday, the 4th we opened up the home tournament with a match against SD School of Mines. It started off as a relatively easy match with a first game win of 25-12 but then turned into a dogfight as we traded the next 3 games with all of them being 2 point games wins for both teams. We had a fight on our hands from a team that was young and taking every opportunity to put their mark on the match. We eventually made a great run at the beginning of the 5th game that eventually led to 15-10 win to seal the match. I think we put a lot of effort into that match and even though we did get 2 matches off before we played again we looked physically and mentally drained as we started our second match of the day against Dickinson State dropping the 1st game 11-25 and not knowing what had hit us. We battled extremely hard the next two games but offensively never got on track as the DSU block kept our LS attack in check all night and finished the last 2 games losing 23-25. It was both a positive and negative feeling after that match knowing that we played so poorly offensively yet still had chances to win 2 games and possibly change the outcome of the match. We talked about just coming in the next day knowing it was a new day.
The next day started off with an early match against Montana Western, we played exceptional during the match with relatively easy wins in the first 2 games and then UMW played well in the third to push us to win 25-23. We then had a very tough match against Rocky Mountain College, a team that is receiving votes for the Top 25. We came out very well and just couldn't finish the 1st game as strong as we started and lost 25-20. The 2nd game was similar where RMC had 1 more 4-5 point run than we did and finished us off 25-18. The 3rd game was difficult for us as we had put a lot of energy in the previous 2 games and fell rather easily to finish the match.
It was a good weekend for us and a weekend that we learned a lot about where we are as a team. We can be a very strong defensive team that carries to battle it out in games. Offensively we are getting better and more balanced with each practice and match. It will continue to be a fun year.
We head into the upcoming week with a great challenge and opportunity. We play Northwestern on Wednesday in Mitchell. Northwestern is #5 in the Nation and always a big match when they come to campus. We come in to the match very confident in our abilities and understand that it will have to be a true team match to accomplish our goals for the match. SHOCK & AWE that is what we are looking to do.
-Coach V
Another week in the books and another solid showing for DWU Volleyball. We started the first week of September off by traveling to Aberdeen, SD for a match. Our JV team played against North Dakota State College of Science for their first match of the year prior to the Varsity team playing against Presentation College. The JV match was a little shaky but we still had some great play out of Kalissa Wade who set a 5-1 offense and delivered some great sets to our hitters. Our hitters had a small case of the yips and allowed NDSCS to get out to early leads in the 3 games. Overall it was not a bad showing for the first match of the year and we still expect great things for this group throughout the season.
The Varsity team came out a little slow against Presentation and trailed most of the first game and then decided to turn it on to take the first game 28-26 (ladies please stop trying to give me more grey hairs I already have plenty). We then went on to control the rest of the match rather easily as we cruised to the 3-0 win. It was a good match to set us up for the upcoming home tournament.
On Friday, the 4th we opened up the home tournament with a match against SD School of Mines. It started off as a relatively easy match with a first game win of 25-12 but then turned into a dogfight as we traded the next 3 games with all of them being 2 point games wins for both teams. We had a fight on our hands from a team that was young and taking every opportunity to put their mark on the match. We eventually made a great run at the beginning of the 5th game that eventually led to 15-10 win to seal the match. I think we put a lot of effort into that match and even though we did get 2 matches off before we played again we looked physically and mentally drained as we started our second match of the day against Dickinson State dropping the 1st game 11-25 and not knowing what had hit us. We battled extremely hard the next two games but offensively never got on track as the DSU block kept our LS attack in check all night and finished the last 2 games losing 23-25. It was both a positive and negative feeling after that match knowing that we played so poorly offensively yet still had chances to win 2 games and possibly change the outcome of the match. We talked about just coming in the next day knowing it was a new day.
The next day started off with an early match against Montana Western, we played exceptional during the match with relatively easy wins in the first 2 games and then UMW played well in the third to push us to win 25-23. We then had a very tough match against Rocky Mountain College, a team that is receiving votes for the Top 25. We came out very well and just couldn't finish the 1st game as strong as we started and lost 25-20. The 2nd game was similar where RMC had 1 more 4-5 point run than we did and finished us off 25-18. The 3rd game was difficult for us as we had put a lot of energy in the previous 2 games and fell rather easily to finish the match.
It was a good weekend for us and a weekend that we learned a lot about where we are as a team. We can be a very strong defensive team that carries to battle it out in games. Offensively we are getting better and more balanced with each practice and match. It will continue to be a fun year.
We head into the upcoming week with a great challenge and opportunity. We play Northwestern on Wednesday in Mitchell. Northwestern is #5 in the Nation and always a big match when they come to campus. We come in to the match very confident in our abilities and understand that it will have to be a true team match to accomplish our goals for the match. SHOCK & AWE that is what we are looking to do.
-Coach V
September 1, 2009
Week #1 Update - Great Start
The first weekend has come and gone and what a great start for the program. We travelled down to Orange City, IA to Northwestern College for a tournament this past weekend. We came out of it 3-1 and feeling very good about what we accomplished and aware of the areas that we need to improve.
We found out that we are a team that will not quit until the last whistle of the match. We won our first 3 matches of the tournament in either 4 or 5 games. Our 1st match was against Mayville State, we came out very quick and explosive and put Mayville in a complete reactive mode to our style. We jumped out to a quick 2-0 game lead and then Mayville made a little push to take the 3rd game before we ended up taking the 4th game. Our second match against Valley City State was not the same as the first match, we were the ones that were not ready to play at first as we dropped the first two games of the match. We found our stride in the 3rd game with a solid showing but then came out in the 4th game a little flat and faced a 23-18 deficit. We went on to be the cardiac kids and pulled out a 27-25 game win to force a 5th game. The 5th game started out like all the rest, we were flat again, it was 8-4 at the change of side and I think it even got to a 11-5 deficit before we stormed back to battle it out for a 18-16 5th game win to clinch the match. We started the match at 8:30 and didn't get out of the gym until close to 11pm. It was one great 1st match day of the season.
The second day had some similar feeling to the first day, our first match was against Waldorf and we jumped out quick in both of the first 2 games to and took care of business. We lacked just a little bit of concentration in the 3rd and let that one get away from us before we clinched the match in the 4th game with another solid performance. Our second match of Saturday had playing against a very talented defensive team in Baker, They had us searching for ways to create offense. We started off very slow but found a way in the first game to get us in fight before we dropped it 23-25, the 2nd game was not one we want to mention, and the third we started off very slow again but found a way to battle it out again before we dropped it 24-26. In one way it was disheartening to see that we played rather poorly but exciting at the same time to know that even when we play below our true level that we can find ways to possibly pull out some wins with a little bit more luck.
This was an exciting and fun first weekend. Everyone who traveled got an opportunity on the court and a chance to contribute to our success. We use many different lineup combinations and got to see some great moments out of our players. As expected we got very good offensive performances all weekend out of Ashley Kley and Jen Miner. We also saw solid offensive contributions Jayna Morrill, Kacie Sanderson, Sarah Stahlke, and Sam Flynn. I would like to point out the great all-around play that Polly Gill provided for the team this weekend. She did an excellent job of passing, defending and providing timely attacking to our wins. Megan Cronberg found some time in the matches that gave her quality experiences and helped her get a little more comfortable with our offense.
Amye Brown and Nikki Gleich didn't wonderfully with our libero position as they both shared that role. Both provided good serve receive ball control and made great defensive hustle plays. Kalissa Wade did an excellent job with her court opportunity and being a great energy giver the entire tournament. Leah Miiller found out how truly versatile she can be as she filled the role as a backup MH successfully as well as a DS. Leah had a spectacular match against Valley City as she sparked us defensively in the 3rd game to begin our comeback win. Andrea Johnson got a lot of court experience this weekend at the MH position. She provided a change of pace for us and added a little more size to our lineup. She too helped spark our comeback match win vs. Valley City.
Our most impressive players of the weekend were Carina Fesenmaier and Brooke Warne. Carina performed very well in her first full weekend running our fast paced offense. She put our hitters into very good situations where they could have many options for their attack. My MVP of the weekend is Brooke Warne. Brooke saw limited action in every match but she absolutely played her role to near perfection. Brooke was our serving specialist for the weekend as she served and defended for one of our middles. We had our biggest runs of points while Brooke was serving. She led us with 9 aces on the weekend and had as many digs and some of our normal rotation players in about 1/4 of the court time. Great job Brooke.
We look to continue our success from the weekend as we enter September. On the 2nd we travel to Aberdeen, SD where our JV will take on North Dakota State College of Science at 5pm and our Varsity will take on Presentation College at 7pm. We then host a tournament here in Mitchell this upcoming weekend where we will have teams from ND and Montana in town to compete. Matches are all day Friday and Saturday. We look forward to our opportunities this week and invite everyone to come watch us continue our success and watch an exciting brand of volleyball.
-Coach V
We found out that we are a team that will not quit until the last whistle of the match. We won our first 3 matches of the tournament in either 4 or 5 games. Our 1st match was against Mayville State, we came out very quick and explosive and put Mayville in a complete reactive mode to our style. We jumped out to a quick 2-0 game lead and then Mayville made a little push to take the 3rd game before we ended up taking the 4th game. Our second match against Valley City State was not the same as the first match, we were the ones that were not ready to play at first as we dropped the first two games of the match. We found our stride in the 3rd game with a solid showing but then came out in the 4th game a little flat and faced a 23-18 deficit. We went on to be the cardiac kids and pulled out a 27-25 game win to force a 5th game. The 5th game started out like all the rest, we were flat again, it was 8-4 at the change of side and I think it even got to a 11-5 deficit before we stormed back to battle it out for a 18-16 5th game win to clinch the match. We started the match at 8:30 and didn't get out of the gym until close to 11pm. It was one great 1st match day of the season.
The second day had some similar feeling to the first day, our first match was against Waldorf and we jumped out quick in both of the first 2 games to and took care of business. We lacked just a little bit of concentration in the 3rd and let that one get away from us before we clinched the match in the 4th game with another solid performance. Our second match of Saturday had playing against a very talented defensive team in Baker, They had us searching for ways to create offense. We started off very slow but found a way in the first game to get us in fight before we dropped it 23-25, the 2nd game was not one we want to mention, and the third we started off very slow again but found a way to battle it out again before we dropped it 24-26. In one way it was disheartening to see that we played rather poorly but exciting at the same time to know that even when we play below our true level that we can find ways to possibly pull out some wins with a little bit more luck.
This was an exciting and fun first weekend. Everyone who traveled got an opportunity on the court and a chance to contribute to our success. We use many different lineup combinations and got to see some great moments out of our players. As expected we got very good offensive performances all weekend out of Ashley Kley and Jen Miner. We also saw solid offensive contributions Jayna Morrill, Kacie Sanderson, Sarah Stahlke, and Sam Flynn. I would like to point out the great all-around play that Polly Gill provided for the team this weekend. She did an excellent job of passing, defending and providing timely attacking to our wins. Megan Cronberg found some time in the matches that gave her quality experiences and helped her get a little more comfortable with our offense.
Amye Brown and Nikki Gleich didn't wonderfully with our libero position as they both shared that role. Both provided good serve receive ball control and made great defensive hustle plays. Kalissa Wade did an excellent job with her court opportunity and being a great energy giver the entire tournament. Leah Miiller found out how truly versatile she can be as she filled the role as a backup MH successfully as well as a DS. Leah had a spectacular match against Valley City as she sparked us defensively in the 3rd game to begin our comeback win. Andrea Johnson got a lot of court experience this weekend at the MH position. She provided a change of pace for us and added a little more size to our lineup. She too helped spark our comeback match win vs. Valley City.
Our most impressive players of the weekend were Carina Fesenmaier and Brooke Warne. Carina performed very well in her first full weekend running our fast paced offense. She put our hitters into very good situations where they could have many options for their attack. My MVP of the weekend is Brooke Warne. Brooke saw limited action in every match but she absolutely played her role to near perfection. Brooke was our serving specialist for the weekend as she served and defended for one of our middles. We had our biggest runs of points while Brooke was serving. She led us with 9 aces on the weekend and had as many digs and some of our normal rotation players in about 1/4 of the court time. Great job Brooke.
We look to continue our success from the weekend as we enter September. On the 2nd we travel to Aberdeen, SD where our JV will take on North Dakota State College of Science at 5pm and our Varsity will take on Presentation College at 7pm. We then host a tournament here in Mitchell this upcoming weekend where we will have teams from ND and Montana in town to compete. Matches are all day Friday and Saturday. We look forward to our opportunities this week and invite everyone to come watch us continue our success and watch an exciting brand of volleyball.
-Coach V
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