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