The last stage of the tough season is upon us.

Since the last post we haven't returned any injured players and it looks like we won't get them back for the remainder of the season.  We ended up playing 2 of the better offensive teams in our conference in Doane on Oct. 25 and #18 in the country Dordt on Oct. 29.  This team played well and had opportunities to win a set or two in each of those matches which include a 36-34 set loss to Dordt.  The cards are stacked against this team right now for the final matches of the season as we battle through the tough situation of losing key players constantly through this season.  Even with the unfortunate injuries to our roster the players that have been given their opportunities to step into the lineup have given everything we can expect from their effort. It has also been great to see some of the other players that have now had their roles increased to be able to handle the pressure of being a go-to player.  It has been a great experience for these players and important for their maturation to become strong players in this program in the near future. 

We are heading into our last 3 matches with a little confidence after the positive things that came from the match against Dordt.  We have to stay in control of our emotions and have discipline skill execution.  We have some opportunities to still win some matches over the next 3 matches so we will certainly find out the fight that remains in our players at this point of a very tough season. 

I believe in this team still and expect to see them all play well, play aggressive, and play with passion.

- Coach V

The month of October Came and Went with a BANG (to our roster)

It has certainly been a while since I really sat back and evaluated enough things to write a blog post.  So I apologize to those that are always anxiously waiting to here about the DWU Volleyball program through our blog. 

Well for those of you that have been in the loop for the past month you probably know that the subject line for this blog entry is unbelievably true for us.  Ever since our Oct. 1 match date we have been replacing primary varsity players roster positions with primary JV players due to injuries. We've lost 5 players to season ending injuries (a 6th & 7th are possible after doctor visits today and Monday) and then another 1 or 2 are attempting to get back into practices next week.  It has been a daunting challenge for our players this month but I am very proud of each of them for accepting different roles and trying to be as positive as one can be in this situation. 

As expected with the near 12 different starting lineups we have used this season that our consistency of play has been more like a roller coaster.  However, we have had some phenomenal moments of play this month where we are clicking on all cylinders as a team.  It shows a lot of promise in our team that there are some very good things ahead of us.  At this point we are trying to keep our heads held high and grind through work each day; make a 1% progression with our skills and techniques individually every day so that we can remain focused on the process rather than the results.  

We are still preparing ourselves and striving to win every match, we just need to make sure that our goals and thought processes are geared more towards how we accomplish our victories and not the victories themselves.  

- Coach V

The week off we needed

We've already played 3 weeks of the season and now it is time to truly prepare ourselves for conference play. Once again the season has been on the hectic side of things with our roster.  We started the season with 16 players for both JV and Varsity, not how we normally would like to be at for roster size.  We knew that we would be using a lot of players with both teams and that both teams would also be relatively young. However, we are excited that most of our sophomores and juniors have quite a bit of playing experience at the varsity level.

We have started the season a little on the rocky side with each weekend tournament having to use a completely different lineup due to injuries, player departures from the team for medical concerns, and other reasons not under our control.  All of these changes have led us into some inconsistent play at times but we are feeling very positive at how many times we have played at a very high level more times than in years past. We have had numerous sets where we have hit over .220 and the amount of errors we give up are much less than previous seasons; we are also excited that our defense has stayed relatively steady with averaging just around the 15 dig per set mark.

This current week is a very important week for us.  We do not have any matches during this week or weekend; so we are using it as a time to really focus on skill development and situational volleyball.  There are some points in time during matches that we have plateaued and this week of practice will focus on staying keenly focused to push through those moments. This time frame will also allow some of our players time to recover from some nagging injuries to be at full strength for the conference opener on Sept. 17.

We will be looking to get all of our JV and Varsity home matches online in some form or another.  We have a Ustream.tv account that we are looking to use; it is the DWU Volleyball Channel.  We will hopefully have a link on our web page in the schedule as well as on our Face Book page and Twitter page (both are labeled DWUVB).

We are looking to begin our conference portion of the season.  The GPAC conference is always tough and with 4 teams ranked in the Top 25 this week from the conference we know that each match will be a great test for our players.

GO TIGERS!!!

-Coach V

Successful Week of Camp Completed

WHOOO! (attempting to spell out the sound for a sigh of relief, LOL) OK it's now time to finally take a calm and relaxing breathe.  We finished our week of camp on Friday, July 26th with our Team Camp Championship.  It was a great way to finish the busy week and the match itself was very exciting. I'll add more details soon.

We started the week off with our HS Skills camp and Youth Camp from Monday to Wednesday.  We accomplished so much with all of our campers in this short amount of time.  It feels so rewarding to get such an enthusiastic "YES" when you ask the question if the campers learned a lot and improved during the camp sessions.  We had a solid number of campers come for each camp and were excited about the talent level that came on to campus as well. Those of you that couldn't make it really missed out on a great experience, so you'll have to try next summer to get it in your schedule.  It was also a great opportunity for us to bring some of our recruits on campus for the 2014 and 2015 classes to train with our staff and players and to visit campus.  We may have locked up a couple of recruits with this opportunity that was presented to them.

The team camp was a great way to finish the week.  This camp that focused on skill and team development more than game play was a huge success.  It was capped off with a very competitive championship match between Ethan and Britton-Hecla.  Every set played was very competitive and within 2 to 3 points of each other.  Ethan came away with the championship and pride of becoming the first back-to-back DWU Team Camp Champions.

A very special thank you goes to all of our DWU players that came back to help out with camp to be instructors and team coaches.  Without them our camp week would not be as successful as it is. They are all so giving of their time and energy.

We are looking at adjusting a couple of things with our camps next summer such as doing our HS level as a couple of position specific camp days rather than an all-skills camp.  We should have the new dates and formats for all of our camps next February.

Best wishes to all of you that read this as you prepare for your upcoming seasons.  We will have our next post be about our preparation for the preseason and upcoming early matches.

Take care all of you,

Coach V

Summer is finally here

It has finally arrived and now the weather is finally feeling like SUMMER IS HERE.  Time to spend a lot of time outside in the sun and live it up. Not going to lie, I will be playing a lot of golf this summer.

This is going to be a great a summer for us here at DWU Volleyball.  We welcome the addition of Jackie Jones as our new assistant coach.  Jackie joins us from Luther College where she has been an assistant coach for the past 2 seasons.  Before that she was at Ole Miss as a student assistant after a career ending injury she suffered before her sophomore season.  As a freshman she was voted to the All-SEC Freshmen Team.  We are very happy to have someone with Jackie's experiences come join us at DWU.

We are still finalizing our 2013 class as of right now with 2 more Letters of Intent still to come in but we are happy with the direction this class is taking our program and very excited with where it leads us into the next few recruiting classes.  We will be making a big push for the 2014 & 2015 classes to be major contributors to our future success.  Once we get those last 2 LOI's in we will release a blog entry with each player's bio.

In the meantime, we are looking forward to the camps that we will be running this summer at a few high schools in the area and our week of camp here on campus from July 22-27.  If you are interested in coming to camp please feel free to get on our website to register. www.dwuathletics.com

This will be the start of some brief updates we'll be doing throughout this summer. I wish everyone the best and hope your summer is as fun-filled as mine will be.

- Coach Viney

The academic year and spring season are coming to a close

WOW time has flown by way too fast this year.  This 2nd semester just seems like it started last month. So much to do and not enough time to get it all done. 

The team has been working extremely hard this spring season with either lifting/conditioning or some form of practice 5 days a week.  We have made a lot of big gains in the weight room and in our skill development. I'm very proud of this group of players. 

We competed in our first spring tournament this past Saturday the 13th at Northwestern College in Orange City, IA.  It was an interesting day as we had 5 injured players and another player that had to miss due to a meeting they couldn't miss back at home for their future. Needless to say our young players that were with us to play got a lot of big time playing experience and some in roles that they don't normally play.  Each match we played had a similar feel to it as we played relatively well the first half of every set and kept things close but once that 17 point mark would hit our opponent turned it up an notch and our youth showed.  It was a good experience and I'm sure our players learned something about themselves and our team in every match. 

We are scheduled to host a spring tournament this upcoming Wednesday the 17th with Dakota State and Mount Marty at 6pm.  Everyone pray that the snow storm (YEAH, in April if you can imagine, not normal) isn't as bad as they say it may be on Tuesday night so that these teams can travel to Mitchell to play.  If we can't play we are looking at some alternative dates to make up the matches. 

Our next blog will be coming out in the coming weeks which will be our 2013 recruits. We aren't quite done with the class but I am super excited about the additions we have coming in. 

Best wishes to all

- Coach V