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

End of the 2012 season & 1st Semester

It gets easy to lose track of time easily this time of the year.  We didn't realize that we hadn't posted anything since the month of October on here.  Sorry about that everyone.

Well the 2012 season came to a close and it was a hard fought season with this overall young group of players. We battled in nearly every match this season and considered ourselves to be in a vast majority of the matches that in years past we would not have been.  Going to 5 sets with Morningside and 4 with Dordt late in the season are tell-tale signs of our progression as a team and what we anticipate for the upcoming seasons.  I am very proud of this group of young ladies and their resiliency to continue to come in and work hard every day. It will pay off for them as we approach the new year.

We will be adding some more posts in the coming weeks that will include our current signings for the 2013 rosters, an update or two on the progress for the spring workouts and practices, and then a summer send off edition.

Thank you to everyone that has continually read our blog, as well as followed us on Facebook (DWUVB) and Twitter (@DWUVB).  We will continually send out updates and fun notes.

Merry Christmas and Happy new year to everyone.

- Coach V

2 weeks later and we are finally back to normal

I last left you DWU VB fans with us getting ready to head into some very winnable matches against Mt. Marty, Dakota State, Valley City and Jamestown.  We knew going in we were still without the services of juniors Sam Sandau and Rachel Tinklenberg for another 2 weeks.  Our young players were just going to have to play at a higher level of consistency.

The goal was to get at least 2 or 3 wins over during the week.  We started with Mount Marty on Tuesday and hosting them at the Corn Palace.  It seems at least every other year Mount Marty turns out to be a thorn in our side.  This just happened to be one of those years.  Not to take anything away from them, they played hard and relatively mistake free volleyball to beat us in 3 sets.  It was a very frustrating experience for our team as they finally learned that their careless attacking and serving errors truly matter against every opponent.  We committed a total 50 errors in the 3 set match.  Yes, we gave them the total of 2 sets worth of points on mistakes that we could mostly control the result.  It felt as if we hit the bottom as we sat in the locker room searching for any type of positive to speak of.  The only that came up was that we got to play another match the next day to get this terrible loss out of our minds.

We came in the next day with a renewed focus and some lineup changes.  Which I don't suggest all of the time without a practice session.  However, we felt a little desperate at the time for a change. Something clicked for the team relatively all night we were a dominate offensive team that just racked up kill after kill.  We still committed a few too many attacking errors but we countered those errors with kills in this match rather than playable attacks like in other matches.  It was a great match as we came out with a five set win at Dakota State.  You can see some highlights from this match at the following web link http://www.hudl.com/team/51690/highlights/12486819.

We then went on the road for the weekend to North Dakota to play Jamestown and Valley City.  Jamestown is a team receiving votes in the NAIA Top 25 vote and Valley City is a team we have nearly always gone to 4 or 5 sets with and all of the hotly contested. Our Jamestown match was played at a low error rate for us which was very nice to see.  We forced Jamestown to be the team to beat us and not ourselves.  We just couldn't earn enough kills or aces consistently enough to push the match to 4 sets.  We played well and even lead a few times in each set but once we got to that 16 to 17 point area Jamestown turned it on and we fizzled away.  We competed though and I believed that we were on the verge of playing better offensively and forcing teams to beat us rather than us giving them so many points.

Our match against Valley City was pretty much how we all expected it to go; every set with close scores and  trading the lead and ties in every set.  We split the first 2 sets to go into the 1-1 and we our game win was relatively dominate albeit the score may not show it.  We gave up a run at the end to make it closer than what it was.  And then the error bug crept up on us again as we felt pressure to be more aggressive offensively because of how well VCSU was playing defensively.  The last 2 sets were still close but we in each set we had 2 runs of points where we gave them 4 errors in row to put a little cushion between us to finish off the match.

We learned a lot as a team and some of our players rediscovered their roles to help us compete and be a more consistent team. Our energy level and emotional play was higher and we now know going into the next few weeks we will need to play at the highest level to achieve our goals.

Talk to all of you soon.
Coach V

A long week of Travel

We had a full week off until our next match. This time it was against reigning GPAC champion Morningside.  We felt that we were unbelievably prepared for this match.  We had to adjust our lineup with Sam being out for a few weeks due to her injury.  We inserted Sarah Kruse, a freshman from IA, into the lineup and thought that we had something special with how we knew the match would go with their lineup.  Unfortunately our other starting junior, Rachel Tinklenberg, suffered a head injury while on campus during the day and was not 100% for the match.  Only after the match did we find out how serious the injury would be.  Rachel did play and played very well for most of the match.  As a team we played extremely well taking a set from Morningside to have the match tied at 1-1 going into the break.  After dropping the 3rd we came back out in the 4th with a readjustment to our starting rotations and it paid off. We controlled most of the 4th set had a couple of set points to force the 5th.  However, that lack of killer instinct crept up on us again and we just couldn't put the 1 ball away we needed to seal the game.  I was very proud of the team as we have never played so well against Morningside and I do believe the next match we play them we will win or it will go to 5.

We had to refocus again as we found out Rachel's injury would keep her out for the next few weeks.  We are now facing a part of the schedule with about 5 very winnable matches out of 7.  However, we have to go through it without our 2 most veteran and leading attacking players.  This is the time of the year that we have to show some resiliency and have a lot of freshmen and sophomores raise their level play immediately. Small mistakes are now big ones for us.

We approached the weekend without Sam and Rachel still in a very positive manner. Knowing that our opponent, Concordia Univ., was a team struggling like us to make other teams beat them.  I was so confident in our players and the lineup we chose to use for the weekend that at not one point in time did I think that we could even go to 5 with them.  We found out that we are great team in the middle of matches (like top 35 in the nation good) but at the start of a match and the end to close it out we play with some fear to make the big play.  We were up 2 sets to 1 and played well for 2/3 of the 4th set.  We just couldn't close out the match as we became a little tentative on offense and gave away too many easy chances for Concordia to make a run.  The 5th set did not start off favorably as we did not receive serve well enough to stay in system.  We made a small push but it was not enough to get over the early deficit we gave ourselves.  This was still an unbelievable performance by our team that played with mainly Freshmen and Sophomores on the court a majority of the match. We have heart as a team but are still looking for that clutch performance by any of our hitters.

We have a short turn around as we look into next week and play Mt. Marty on Tuesday and Dakota State on Wednesday then travel to North Dakota for matches against Jamestown and Valley City. We have to find some kind of killer instinct as I do believe that we will put ourselves in position to win each of these matches. Can we finish the job each time is the question.

So the title isn't only about our matches.  We had some bus issues on our way to Morningside that delayed the start of the matches by an hour and half.  We then were supposed leave on Friday night to head down to Nebraska for our match with Concordia on Saturday. As we were waiting outside for the bus we received the call the bus was not going to be able to make the trip.  We then had to adjust our departure to Saturday morning at 6am.  Just not a great week for us with bus travel.

Keep checking our FaceBook and Twitter (@DWUVB) pages for more information. We also have a YouTube page with funny videos of our team. Have a great week.

- Coach V

Tough Times at Home

From my last post we had high expectations to get our level of consistency in matches to be better.  In turn hoping that the wins and losses would take care of themselves if we made it be that the opponent beat us rather than us give away around 15 points per game in errors. I must say that overall we have cleaned up our play and earned more set wins when doing that.  Now that next step is to close out matches with confidence and a killer instinct.

We went 1-3 at our tournament on Sept. 7-8, which was not the plan at all.  We had some big troubles with giving away points early in sets and putting ourselves in too big of a hole to come out of late.  The awareness of the value of every point was not with us that weekend.

We opened up GPAC play by hosting Dordt College on Wednesday Sept. 12.  Dordt has always been a very high quality team in the conference and this year is no difference. They were a very solid blocking team and had an MH that had a great match at the net.  We added to it with a lot of reception errors which was not the norm for how our season had been going to that point.  We had been very solid as a serve receive team most of the season. We finished the match playing well and forcing Dordt into more mistakes and we began to put more balls away but fell short in the end.  It was also not a great ending as junior Sam Sandau injured her ankle in one of the last 3 points of the match. She was playing a very solid match and contributing so much to our team.

We now have a week off until we play Morningside next Wednesday.  We have to look at a new lineup and come up with some ways to earn points aggressively.  It is a big week for us with some winnable matches.

Keep checking our facebook page and our Twitter (@DWUVB) page for quick bits of information.  We also have a YouTube page DWUVolleyball.  There you can find funny videos from our team normally.

I'll talk to you next week.

- Coach V

Solid Progress for the beginning of the Season

As I look back over the first 2 weeks of the season I have mixed feelings about where we are as a team. I love the energy and enthusiasm that this group plays with every match.  We have heart and we battle every opponent.  However, in most of the matches we have played we have also battled ourselves along with the opponent due to our inconsistencies on offense.  We put so much emphasis on defense during the preseason that we knew there was going to be moments that our offensive prowess was not going to be to the level that a particular match situation would require. I am remain confident that as we progress through this season we will get our comfort level for offense figured out. We have some solid attackers and setters and it is only a matter of time and discipline training for us to find our stride.

For those following us through the website (http://www.dwuathletics.com/womens-athletics/volleyball/) or our Facebook page or twitter feed (@DWUVB) have seen some solid set scores but not the match scores every team hopes for in a result. We have played 2 weekend tournaments so far and came out 1-3 in each of those.  The goal was to go 2-2 but fell short in the 1 match in each tournament we thought we could get (Valley City on 8/25 lost in 5 and Mayville on 9/1 lost in 4). Unfortunately a match we had strong feelings about that we would win was cancelled on 9/3 against Trinity Bible College; we hope to reschedule that match.

We hosted the DWU/Coca-Cola Classic last weekend for the Labor Day weekend.  It was a great success although our record didn't show the quality of play we did have. Dani Bird (OH, Omaha, NE) was named to the all-tournament team for her solid attacking and blocking performance all weekend.

This upcoming weekend we host our annual Corn Palace Classic (match schedule HERE).  There is no doubt in my mind that we can leave the weekend with a 4-0 record to help build confidence as we head into conference play next week.  You can see all of the matches played streaming live, http://www.justin.tv/cornpalace.

We will have updates all weekend through our Dakota Wesleyan Volleyball Facebook and twitter (@DWUVB) accounts as well as our DWU Athletics pages (@dwusports).

Talk to you again next week.
- Coach V

2012 Season is upon us

Well the time has come to lace up the shoes and strap on the knee pads for the high intense competition of college volleyball.  We finish the 2 weeks of preseason extremely anxious to play against someone other than ourselves.  It will be a true test of where we are as a team and what areas we still need to improve.  It has been an interesting preseason for us with injuries creeping up on us a bit and other issues that have slowed our progress.  However, after today's practice I believe we have built some confidence and rhythm with our players.

Some key players to watch will be Dani Bird (So., OH from Omaha, NE), Rachel Tinklenberg (Jr., MH from Pipestone, MN), Elizabeth Mahsem (Fr., MH from MacFarland, WI), Sammy Fluck (FR., OH from Becker, MN) and Maggie Stehly (Fr., Libero from Sioux Falls, SD)

There have been some very good moments for every player in our program and the selection of a travel roster for this weekend was very difficult.  We will have a predominantly young lineup out on the floor for the entire season so I am sure we'll have some up and down rhythms to the season.  All in all we are excited about what the future brings and are positive that we have more successes than failures this year.

We'll have another update next week with some information about the matches from this upcoming weekend.   We wish all of you reading this the best of luck this weekend if you are playing as well.  Take care and have a great day.

- Coach V

Introducing the 2012 DWU Incoming VB Playes

It is time to mention our 2012 Recruiting class.

You can get more information about each player from their press releases HERE.

First let me say that I am excited about the young ladies coming in this upcoming fall and believe that these additions along with the returners that have the varsity experience; we have created a very solid foundation to truly build from for the future success of this program.

Sammy Fluck from Becker, MN will be asked to move from her traditional middle hitter position to the left side hitting position. It is a change that she will be able to make comfortably with her very high skill level.

Elizabeth "Z" Mahsem from McFarland, WI was a late addition to our class but we are very fortunate have her coming to DWU. "Z" is a force at the net offensively and should be a great option for our offense in the middle of the court.

Maggie Stehly from Sioux Falls, SD should be considered one of the top libero prospects coming out of the state of SD. At 5'10" she can cover a lot of court with her length and fortunately we signed her rather than one of the local D1 or D2's got her.

Mallory Jark from Warner, SD will be a great addition to our roster as a utility hitter. Primarily a middle hitter, Mallory can hit from any position on the court and defend the back court relatively well. A very high ceiling of potential.

Hannah Hammer from Dell Rapids, SD is a tall, left-handed right side attacker. We will be able to extend our offensive range by adding Hannah to our roster. Everyone like to have a lefty on the right side, we are no different.

MacKenzie Stevens from Polk, NE is a high energy player that can hit on the left side and be a very strong defensive player. Another competitive player that is athletic and very skilled as a passer.

Sarah Kruse from George, IA is another athletic player with a surprisingly fast arm swing that explodes on the ball. With the limited amount of depth at the left side position, her height and aggressive swing could be valuable early in her career.

Karlee Huber from Rapid City, SD is a combination left side hitter and defensive specialist. She is very aggressive defender and plays so hard on every play. I believe a great addition to our mentality on defense.

Jaymie Barrett from Scotland, SD is a setter that will help add some depth to our roster in that position. Jaymie has an understanding of not trying to over-analyze situations and simply gets the job done.

Shelby Vosburg from Baltic, SD is primarily a MH but does have some ability to play other positions on the court, even as a defensive player. She plays with a high VB IQ level that normally has her positioned extremely well to make plays.

Jessalyn Weink from De Smet, SD is raw talent with a very strong arm swing. I have seen her hit some very heavy attacks that quite honestly scare some players. We can't wait to unleash her on the GPAC.

This class of 11 athletes is possibly the most overall athletic class I have brought in to DWU. Six of the 11 are at least 6' tall and 2 others are at least 5'10". There will be a lot asked of each of these players this upcoming season as well as during their entire careers while at DWU.

The future seems bright with these athletes along with the talent that we brought in for 2011. Skilled athletes with high ceilings for progress; everything a coach wants in a rebuilding phase.

It's a great time to be a Tiger Volleyball Player and even a great time to want to be a part of our future.

- Coach V

As the summer ends.....

Well it has been quite some time since I have left a message here (Sorry about that everyone, the first baby boy certainly takes your attention away from other things).

I meant to do at least 1 or 2 posts about the spring season for the team.  Better late than never right?

After finishing the season with the amount of injuries we had we were forced to play a lot of younger players (mainly freshmen) in situations we weren't ready to put them in yet.  However, all things considered the growth of each player was great in the last 3 weeks of the season.  Our focus in the spring was to focus purely on Serve Receive Passing and Transition Hitting.  I believe our consistency in these areas has gotten better but you never know how it will translate to the following fall season after nearly 3 months off because of the summer break. We went into the spring with 18 players and a lot of focus towards each day that we trained.  There were a lot of very good days that built confidence in every player.

As we approached the time in April that team practices would start we had some roster changes (both injury and departure) occur that we weren't expecting and I can say that it did affect the overall feeling of our team looking towards the near future.  We had to alter our focus on lineup creation a bit as we competed in some friendly spring tournaments with other teams in the area.  There were some big eye-opening moments for us that showed some of our players areas of improvement that we thought we had fixed.  By the end of the spring season, there was a great deal of progress and understanding of what truly needs to be done on an individual skill level to achieve the team goals we have for the upcoming couple of seasons.  Experiences were gained in the struggles we faced on the court and sometimes that is the best teacher.

Now that we are approaching the start of the season I can only hope that every returner comes back to campus in top form and ready to continue the progress and strive to make DWU a force to be reckoned with in the GPAC.

- Coach V

Injuries - It's Almost Laughable at this Point

Our ride on the roller coaster seems to have no end. As the positives present themselves some tragedy strikes. We came into this past week with some confidence and a feeling that we could battle some demons that have been haunting us since the 2nd week of the season. I have thought that since the last time we played Dakota State at the Corn Palace and lost in 5 that we haven't been able to find our groove as a team. That particular match stole our mojo and we have been searching for it ever since. Well the opportunity to avenge the loss and basically face the "demon" that scared off our confidence came around this past week. We went to Dakota State in a great mental state knowing that that day could be very special. We came out in the match so well, taking the first set and what we thought was the momentum for the match. However, our harnesses from the "roller coaster" tightened up on us and we gave away around 16 errors in the 2nd set to basically hand over set 2. After some major refocusing we came out and battled hard to a 3rd set victory. DSU however was not ready to let go of the match as both teams again battled in the 4th. We had a substantial 5 point lead at a point in the 4th but couldn't hold them as they finished on a 6 point run to end the 4th. I was pleased to hear and see in between the 4th and 5th set that our team was ready to take over the match. They spoke confidently and had a swagger about them as they headed back onto the court. Then all as the 3rd point of the 5th set is scored by senior MH Kacie Sanderson, the dreaded monster that has plagued us all year strikes again as Kacie injuries her knee and cannot return for the match (and remainder of the year). This time our lineup had to adjust in the middle of the match with no preparation. This group of young ladies did not let this setback affect them as they battled for the entire 5th set and even held a match point or 2. We just couldn't escape ourselves as we committed errors in those situations to give the ball back to DSU and force ourselves to scramble to the finish. We couldn't pull out the win and again it was devastating.

We tried to refocus and prepare ourselves for the next match against Midland for our Dig Pink match that was held at Mitchell HS in conjunction with their Dig Pink match. Here is where all of these injuries and illnesses truly become laughable, our starting sophomore MH Rachel has trouble breathing and talking before the match and has to be limited with the amount of movement we can use her while on the court. Our primary hitting option is now limited, haha it just never ends. Midland however was a very solid team and our injury ridden lineup could only hang with them for 2 of the 3 sets played. We had some opportunities to win the 1st set as we lost 23-25 and the 2nd set I believe went to 21 for us. We compete hard and continue to fight.

My phrase for the season has unfortunately been "Of course that would happen now", we haven't seemed to be able to catch a single break in close sets, matches, injuries or illnesses. It is absolutely laughable at this point in time. Any prayers and wishful thoughts that anyone that reads this would like to pass along to our players, we would all greatly appreciate them. (heck any healthy bodies would be nice right now, too. LOL)

We have competed so hard and have made so many adjustments to lineups and tactics that we still believe that we will get off of this losing streak. IT WILL HAPPEN!

The Roller Coaster Continues

It has been a week and half of matches since our last post and ups and downs of playing inexperienced and young players is taking its toll. I will say that this group of ladies are fighters and play with a lot of energy to never give up. We will come up with something shocking here in the next few weeks. I believe it is in us.

We have had 4 conference matches and 1 non-conference match in the past 2 weeks. The conference match ups were not friendly to us as we played 4 of the top 6 teams in the conference. In every match we had some great competitive moments of controlling play for 2/3 of sets and even taking a set but we just seemed to run out of offensive firepower at the end of sets when you need it the most. Every match we played the past 2 weeks has come down to untimely errors on our part. Missed serves after already giving up a 4 point run. Attacking balls in the net or out of bounds on free ball opportunities. Not focusing on the key attackers of the opponent during situations where they need a crucial point. It keeps coming back to inexperience in big game situations, we will continue to grow and I believe that we will get better in this situations this upcoming week. WE HAVE TO!

One performance in the past 2 weeks that needs to be applauded is Rachel Tinklenberg while we were at York this past weekend. She had 24 kills and 3.5 blocks in the match and at a couple of different times in the match she would get 4 kills in a row. She carried our team to a near match victory as we did have match point in the 4th set. However the team could not overcome the 69 errors we committed in the match.

Our roller coaster of positive and negative experiences on the court is continuing this fall. As much as I love real life roller coasters I would really like to get off of this one. This group of young ladies will continue to fight and never give up. They will continue to believe they can reach their goals and achieve great things. I believe in them and will continue to work my hardest everyday to give them more competitive experiences in practice and prepare them for the rigors of the home stretch of our very competitive conference schedule. WE WILL NEVER QUIT ON OURSELVES OR EACH OTHER!!!!

- Coach V

Errors and Injuries - 2 Things Not Good for a Young Team

Hey everyone,
Sorry for the delay in getting some information up here. It has been and extremely hectic 2 weeks. We have gone through some extreme emotional situations over the past 2 weeks and we are truly just starting the recovery and rebuilding process.

Since my last time on here we were at 7-6 and just prior to that we were 7-3 on the season. I am sad to say that the left column hasn't changed in the past 2 weeks and we are now sitting at 7-13 on the season. We have battled hard in most of the matches and had to change our lineups for numerous situations. Coming out of the Viterbo tournament we felt that we were close to getting our consistency figured out on offense and just needed a little bit of pure focus on certain areas of our game to get things running smoothly again. We entered into conference play that week against Dordt and unfortunately our SR passing was not consistent to allow us to get our primary hitters involved in a faster tempo offense to keep their big block split more often and ended up dropping the match 0-3. We had the weekend off to let the team refocus and get away from volleyball for a little bit and be able to come back with a renewed passion and eagerness to learn. Our 3 practices heading into our next conference match against Morningside were highly competitive and intense, we had confidence. We battled during the first set and felt that we let the first set slip away from us with some untimely errors at the end of the set. We then ran into the buzz saw of the Morningside offense as they went through the next 2 sets without committing a single attacking error (there is no one in the country that can beat a team that doesn't commit errors).

We understood that our first 2 opponents for conference play were high quality teams and matches that we were the considered the underdogs. We approached the weekend knowing that our opponent, Concordia, had been playing well and that our two teams were evenly matched. It was going to be a very tough match for both teams. Each team traded sets all the way up to the 5th set and most of the sets were close outside of our 2nd set victory where controlled all of the play to a 25-15 win. I knew that we were the more talented team at that time but hoped that our inability to play consistently was gone for the day. Set 3 both teams played well but they outlasted us. In Set 4 we played better statistically but they fought to keep it close. Then in the 5th, the error bug bit us and bit us in a major way. We opened up the 5th with 5 or 6 straight unforced errors and put ourselves in a major hole that we weren't able to get out of and went on to lose the 5th set. It was crushing lose to us knowing we had an opportunity to close them out and couldn't do it. The worst part for me as a coach is looking at the statistics and seeing that nearly all of the stat categories we won, just not the one that counts, the game scores. I left the gym wondering if a match like this would have a hangover affect on our team. I would get to find out the next week as we went to face Mt. Marty.

Let me preface this next section by saying that this could could be one of the toughest weeks to ever go through as a coach or player.

Even to this day I believe that we are leaps and bounds much better than Mt. Marty and have and incredible amount of talent and athleticism over them. However, on the night we played them it had to be the worst match we have ever played. We committed a total of 55 to 60 errors in the 4 sets we played. Yes, we gave them 2 sets worth of points in our own errors. It was one of the more disappointing matches I have ever been involved in and it was heartbreaking to the team as well. The recovery process was going to be long and the demeanor of the team needed to change as well as the lineup. So we approached the next day at practice (with only 1 day to prepare for the next match) with an intense team meeting and a complete refocus on accountability on the court. I felt good about the meeting and the response from the team in their understanding of the new goals set ahead of them. Then the chaos and adversity we thought we had just gotten past hit square in the face as our senior OH, went down from landing awkwardly after an attack to a devastating knee injury. The positive energy and emotion we had flowing in the gym came to a screeching halt in a matter of seconds. Our thoughts about preparation for USF went directly to concern for her; we had once again lost our focus on the task at hand. As we continued with practice the need for a new lineup was absolutely necessary as we now had to figure out how to fill the hole left by the injury and who would be able to pick up the slack as now our 2nd leading attacker was most likely done for the season. We took the rest of practice not preparing for USF but figuring out which lineup would give us the best shot at competing the next night. We entered into the match against USF knowing we were just trying to figure things out and hoping to play well. We started the match very slow but managed to nearly find a way to win the first as we held a lead very late in the set around 25-24 but then went on to lose the set 27-29. Heart, fight, guts whatever you want to call, we showed it in the first set and were hoping to continue that trend through the rest of the match. The 2nd set was similar albeit that we stayed close for nearly the entire set and didn't let up, but then the error bug bit us again and we dropped the 2nd set 19-25 and the 3rd set was filled with unforced errors that not even our defense could remedy to help extend rallies. We spoke after the match about what qualities we need to have with the team as we go forward knowing that we were needing to change lineups and do things we did not plan at the beginning of the year. It was a positive meeting and we all had an understanding about what needed to come from each person to get back on track.

We then tried to prepare for the weekend as we were making a trip to ND to face Jamestown and Valley City. Our main focus heading into the weekend and from here on out is to fight for every point, extend rallies and with play with great intensity. We played Jamestown on Saturday hearing the chatter in stands they believed that the match was going to go 3 and be the fastest match in their history. Well the first set certainly gave that indicator as we committed around 16 errors and they were errors that we had control over. We took the between game time to emphasize our decision making that was causing the errors and came out and absolutely dominated play for the first 2/3 of the 2nd set. We minimized our errors to where we stayed away from committing 3 or 4 in a row. We gave away 1 run of 4 or 5 points late in the set that got them kind of back in the set but we closed them out at 25-21 (it wasn't really that close until the last mini run by them). We were proving to ourselves that no matter who play if we limit the scoring runs we give on our own errors we can play with and beat anyone. It felt great. But could we do it in back to back sets? The answer unfortunately was no as we went on to commit 16 errors again in the 3rd set and 11 errors in the 4th set. When we keep the amount of errors to 10 or less in any given set we have won nearly all of those sets this season. The Valley City match ended up being a lot of the same from the week, we committed numerous errors in a row early in sets and then had to fight back to get back in it. Our set scores were 19, 22 and 23, the team battled so fiercely and I believe we will get this ship righted very soon, as long as we begin to learn how to limit the errors we give away in a row. We also had to deal with our senior MH get extremely sick during the weekend and then could barely play against Valley City. So we had to adjust our lineup again without preparation. We'll see what happens this upcoming week as we get back into conference play and search for the conference win that has eluded us thus far. Wish us luck and wish us healthy.

-Coach V

Our trip to the State of Cheese

So it has been a little bit longer than I wanted it to be that I wrote but for those of you follow our news stories on the website and my occasional twitter posts (@coachviney) you may have an idea why I have been reluctant to, let's say spread the word about the results from the past 2 weeks.

We came out of the Corn Palace Classic not as confident as a team normally should after going 3-1 over that weekend. The 5 set loss to Dakota State took something out of us. We headed to Presentation College in Aberdeen on the 7th knowing we should be able to take care of business relatively quickly. I think for the most part we did (first 2 sets we only allowed 17 and 12 points) but lost some focus in the 3rd set and let them come back and make that set interesting and forcing us to beat them 27-25. A little hectic but we got the job done. A win is a win!

We had another big trip ahead of us for the weekend. A trip to La Crosse, WI at Viterbo University for a tournament. Our 2 players from Green Bay were so looking forward to this trip. I think I have heard enough reasons why Wisconsin is great - so they think HAHA.
Coming in to the season I knew this was going to be a tournament that had the potential to be difficult. My expectation was 2-2 because of the two potential Top 25 teams we were scheduled to face there (Viterbo & Northwestern). How many of you get that feeling the day before or even the day of a competition and you just don't feel right, like something is missing? I unfortunately had that feeling on the Friday morning of the tournament. I tried to shake it all day and come up with all of these confidence building sayings and thoughts. Well my gut must have been telling me something as we entered in to the first match with Waldorf College (who was winless on the season at that time). They played right before our match and were competing so hard defensively just frustrating their opponent. I knew we were about to have the same match with them. Waldorf came out with the confidence of a team that was undefeated, scrapping for every point and making us have to earn every point. It was taxing on the players. Both teams battled back and forth for the first 4 sets and even through the entire 5th set. We finally made a statement and put our stamp on the match at the (I believe) 12-13 score in the 5th set and us being down. Out of the timeout we had a crossing pattern play drawn out to get a potential matchup for Freshman Danielle Bird to take the biggest swing of the season. In the the timeout, I told her to just put the ball away no matter what. Her response was a thunderous kill that blasted the opposing libero in the gut, I swear the gym was filled with the sounds of Danielle's contact of the ball and the ball's contact of the libero's stomach - it was the momentum play we had searched for all match long. We went on to win 17-15 in the 5th.

Our next 3 matches for the weekend were struggles to say the least. Northwestern played at an unbelievable pace that we weren't ready for and stuck it to us. The next morning we thought we had a great chance to get that second win of the tournament against Hannibal-LaGrange. Our offense was inconsistent and we couldn't put together the runs we normally get and lost each set by 2 or 3 points. Here is the hard pill to swallow - Looking at the stat sheets from both teams we had better attacking numbers and blocking numbers as well as more digs. However, HLG committed 6 less errors than we did throughout the match and therefore earned them the win. We finished the tournament by playing #21 at the time Viterbo. They play at a very high tempo with their offense and their setter is extremely accurate and athletic, the key to the team. We opened up the first set with dismal passing and found ourselves in a big double digit hole. But then we caught a break, during a play their setter got injured and had to leave the match. Informing the team of the big break that was just presented to them about the heart of their team now out for potentially the entire match, we had a chance. Our response was positive for the next 2 sets as we pushed Viterbo to change their offense to set players that don't normally get as many swings. I thought we were going to pull out the 3rd set to force a 4th but as it was the entire weekend our offensive efficiency (ability to score points and not just keep balls in play or give away points) held us back from reaching our goals. We did however, leave the tournament with our heads held high knowing that the ability to play good ball is in us and that we just have to demand and expect more from our individual performances to ignite the team.

Our tournament season is over and now we head into the true purpose for our season - the GPAC conference season. Our overall youth has been a slight reason for our ups and downs but we now have to get through the adversity we create and fight our way to the top. The matches we have played are a big part of the experience we need to compete in this great conference. We must now look forward to achieve our goal of finishing in the top 8 of the conference and make it into the conference tournament. The near future is bright this group of women, it is our time to show that youth is not a negative thing when it comes to competition.

- Coach V

Corn Palace Classic Weekend

That was one extremely busy weekend. 6 college teams and 4 HS teams played 14 matches over the Labor Day weekend here in Mitchell. There was great volleyball played by every team that stepped foot on the court at the World's Only Corn Palace. Check out the stats from all of the college matches on our web page specific for the tournament. Congrats to Ethan HS and Mitchell HS for winning their matches on Saturday. They were fun to watch.

Before we go any further I have to give a HUGE THANK YOU to our JV team and other volunteers for operating the scores table, line judging, and ball shagging all weekend. All of you did a fantastic job and worked extremely long hours. I hope the payment of free food all weekend was sufficient.

Looking back at our weekend we finished 3-1, which is a very positive weekend. However, losing your very last match of a tournament against a rival will always leave a sour taste in your mouth. We opened the weekend on Friday playing Dickinson State. They had recently added 2 players that weren't playing the weeks before from suspension and were 2 very athletic OH's. We weren't sure how much they would change their team but after watching them jump out to a commanding 2 set to 0 lead on York in their first match of the tournament it was clear they were very different then what we saw the weekend before when they were out in Montana. They did end up losing some steam and lost in 5 to York but we still saw them as a dangerous team. We came out extremely focused on our game plan to take the line away from one of those hitters and cross court against the other. The execution of our blocking and then the addition of very solid ball control to keep us in system allowed us to dominate play in a 3 set victory, 25-18, 25-14, 25-15. We hit .370 in the match with only 1 attacker having more than 1 attacking error while also averaging 16 digs a set. It was a great overall match both offensively and defensively. It was an exceptional start to the weekend. We got great balanced performances from Larissa Veldhuizen and Danielle Bird while Kacie Sanderson and TyAnn Buddenhagen were extremely efficient attacking the ball with .417 and .556 hitting %'s. Katie Lindow also came in off the bench as a serving specialist to provide an ace and 3 digs.

We finished Friday night with our match against York College. In the previous few years York had always been a team that you could get school records against because of their level of play. Well not anymore, after seeing them come back from 0-2 to win 3-2 against Dickinson, it was very clear they were a team that had some talent, skill and were well coached. Kudos to Coach Fear for really getting things turned around there at York. This match was competitive the entire time. We could not put them away in any set early to give us that breathing space we like to have to close out sets. We took the first 2 sets (25-22 & 25-20 respectively and then York pushed us to the limit to take the 3rd set 25-23. We had to battle hard again in the 4th to finally close out the match 25-21. We did a great job in the serve & serve receive game with 11 aces and only 2 reception errors. We did well at the net with 11 total blocks and 49 kills. Larissa Veldhuizen was the go to player as she recorded a double-double with 14 kills and 16 digs. Katie Lindow again provided some offense with 6 service aces in her serving specialist role. While Sam Sandua continued her consistency for the season with a .238 hitting % and adding 8 kills. And Rachel Tinklenberg hit .300 with 9 kills and added 5 block assists. Tyann Buddenhagen and Briana Jung both provided quality setting and great defense as both were above 15 digs each in the match.

We opened Saturday against Valley City State. This has turned into a big rivalry match over the past 3 seasons. Heading into this match the 2 teams had played 4 times since 2009 with every match going 5 sets. We had a 3-1 record vs. VCSU heading into the match this weekend. It may have also grown into more of a rivalry since the head coach there is my wife's best friend and college teammate. It was a tight match the entire, trading the first 3 sets with us up 2-1 and barely pulling out the 3rd set. We managed to figure out some things with our offensive efficiency for the 4th set to stop the 5 set match streak at 4 and beat VCSU in 4 sets. I can honestly say that looking at the statistics without the scores one would guess VCSU won the match. However, our perseverance through the adversity of not playing as well as we did the day before and against an opponent that wanted the win was extremely key to the victory. We got another double-double out of Larissa Veldhuizen with 13 kills and 13 digs. Brooke Warne provided 20 digs in the match to anchor the defense and Sam Sandau again was Miss consistency with 9 kills with a .350 hitting %. It should be another great match when we go to Valley City the first weekend of Oct.

The last match of the weekend had us facing another rival in Dakota State. They had played some strong volleyball throughout the tournament and I knew they would come out ready to play. Both teams battled hard in the first set to a 25-22 DWU victory. Dak State committed a lot of hitting errors in the first set to help us in that set. We knew that trend would not continue as they are a team that likes to tip and throw the ball around after making mistakes. The 2nd and 3rd set Dakota State pushed themselves out to quick 5 and 6 point leads and never looked back as we looked like deer in headlights during those sets as we could only score 13 and 17 in those sets. The execution of the game plan was non-existence and the focus on the 2 hitters that Dak State uses all of the time was poor. It did not look good for us heading into the 4th set. Again we came out flat in the 4th but fortunately not putting ourselves in too big of hole. Dakota State began to make a few more attacking errors to help us stay close. As we approached the final 5 to 6 points in the set something changed in the attitude of how the team was approaching game and our energy level rose as well as our communication. We clawed our way back to a 23-23 tie and found a way to pull out the 4th to set up what would be a very intense 5th set. The first half of the 5th was back and forth as both teams played well to the 8-7 switch with DWU up. But after the switch of court we lost confidence after back to back throw kills to both deep corners from their MH. They were devastating kills that took the wind out of our sail and unfortunately the aggression out of our game (which will never happen again). It was heart breaking and even to today I have a sour taste in my mouth about how it finished. We did get some good quality performances from Brooke Warne with 25 digs and another double-double from Larissa Veldhuizen with 13 kills and 13 digs again. Other double-doubles recorded were by Danielle Bird with 11 kills and 12 digs and Briana Jung with 24 assists and 15 digs.

Again we'll take the 3-1 record and move on with a lot more learning coming our way about how to stay aggressive the entire time we play and to limit how much the other team can control what we want to do to score points. We head into the first full week of September with a 5-3 record and with a good amount of confidence as we travel to Presentation College in Aberdeen, SD on Wednesday the 7th and then out to Viterbo University in LaCrosse, WI for Sept. 9-10.

Wish us luck.
- Coach V

Out to the West

The first weekend of competition has already come and gone. We took an extended trip out to Wyoming and Montana with both our JV and Varsity. Our JV team played in a tournament at Sheridan College while the varsity team went to Billings, MT to compete at Rocky Mountain College.

The JV team competed hard all weekend and did well considering 6 of the 8 players that were there played out of position. They played 5 matches during the weekend and had some opportunities to take a couple of sets but kind of stalled out at the end of those particular sets. Assistant Coach Dannie Burt coached them all weekend and said that there were a lot of bright spots from Paige VandenMeerendonk who was being forced to play in the middle rather than on a pin where she is more comfortable. There was also a big moment when 5'5" Lacey Reimnitz (playing LS, out of position) went up and crushed a kill down around the 15 ft. mark for a point in the first match of the weekend. They said that you could see the cape behind her as she flew in the air to take the swing. LOL.

Great job ladies.

The varsity team had what we would consider a roller coaster weekend with only one major drop. Fortunately that drop came in the very first match of the year against MT Tech. That's all we'll say about that one. We have decided to go out of sight, out of mind with that match. We then played MT Western and started off slow, most likely an hangover from the previous match, but somewhere in the middle of the 2nd set things picked up with communication and energy level. We still dropped the 2nd set but we could feel a change. That change came out a 5 set match win with some great performances from Larissa Veldhuizen and Danielle Bird. Check out the stats from the online schedule.

We woke up the next morning feeling better about our chances and came to face nationally ranked Rocky Mountain who in the previous weekend had beaten two top 10 teams in straight sets while out in California. We knew we had our hands full. It was a match of big runs, they had a 8 to 9 point run then we had 7 to 8 point run, each team had big runs like that in every set. Although we lost in straight sets we actually built more confidence in ourselves as we continued to look back at how the match was played, we blocked well and forced a team much bigger than us to have to use more tips and roll shots to get points. We also put a lot of pressure on their serve receive passers keeping them out of system for a majority of the match. We finished the weekend off by playing MT State-Northern, who had been playing extremely well all weekend long. It was a hard fought match with us losing the 1st set, winning the next 2 but dropping the 4th. We went into the 5th just feeling as if we have controlled nearly every aspect of the match but just let our focus slip a little in the 4th set. We came out and took control of the 5th after the 8 point switch to win 15-10. It felt amazing to leave the weekend with a win and to have a great feeling from a vast majority of the sets we played.

A lot of confidence is bubbling as the team enters into the first week of September and hosting our own Corn Palace Classic. Check out the schedule for the tournament here.

It is a good start to the season. We expect to continue this climb with confidence over the coming weeks to prepare us for the difficult GPAC schedule ahead.

- COACH V