The 2011 preseason has officially reached its end, meaning classes have started and full parking lots. Preseason flew by this year and it is kind of sad knowing that I only have one more preseason left in my college career. Nevertheless, wipe away those tears that were welling up in your eyes because I am about to fast track what has happened these past couple of weeks.

We started off our season with a tournament in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the Concordia University Early Bird Invitational. Long story short, going into this tournament with no idea of a line-up was definitely interesting, but I think Coach did a great job of finding a place for everyone, and it showed. We swept the tournament winning all 4 matches in three games each. I felt as if everyone embraced their position on the team and ran with it. We were playing solid volleyball and so we were feeling accomplished and confident after our wins and were ready for our next weekend tournament in Dearborn, Michigan.

This tournament was much larger than our previous one, and with that, the teams were at a much higher caliber. On the first day, we played Cornerstone and St. Francis (Ill.). We soon got a rude awakening when we lost to Cornerstone in three games and then in four to St. Francis. Determined to shake off the losse,s we continued to fight back the next day against Roberts Wesleyan and Madonna University. Once again, we lost both matches in three games each. For any other team, this would be a big confidence killer, but for us we really learned exactly what our strengths and weaknesses were. We talked about it as a team, and playing these great teams made us realized what we really needed to focus on and work on in order to raise our level of play. The weekend may have given us four losses, but in the grand scheme of things I think that what we learned from it was worth much more than our record.

Now onto our latest match which happened this past Thursday and it was also our first home game! Going in after just losing four matches is definitely a scary thing because we of course want to win on our home court in front of our fans. The crowd that showed up was awesome, and I just want to thank everyone who came because it really does make a difference to us. We were so pumped that night and had a great warm-up. Along with that, we definitely showed up to play. Despite the insanely hot gym and overly sweaty arms, we played so much better than the previous weekend. We outplayed Lake Erie College, and even though we were in a deficit in the first game, we came back and finished strong which was a great accomplishment. It gave us that confidence that even though we are so young, we can still step up and play well. And we hope to take this confidence and run with it. We realize that every practice counts, and that we cannot afford to take any time off to slack or go through the motions. We still have a lot of work to do, and if we want to compete in our new conference this year, we have to continue to step it up.

This week, I am going to introduce the first teammate who happens to be #1 on the roster as well. Tricia Kupiec is a defensive specialist from East Knox and is one of our three freshmen. It took me quite some time to finally crack Trish because she is super shy. She was my special project during preseason meaning I tried extra hard to get her to open up and to be comfortable around us. Once she came out of her shell, she fits in so well. Since the first practice to now, Trish has improved immensely! If you happen to walk in our practice now, you will see her passing dimes and just to see her keep improving each and everyday should teach us to continue working hard because there is always room for improvement. She is literally the cutest person I have ever met. She is so tiny and sweet that we all agreed that we could just "put her in our pocket" and take her everywhere if we could because she is just too darn cute. Every time I see her on campus, she is also so smiley and happy to be there and I cannot help but smile. I love having her on the team because of her fun and cheerful attitude. I look forward to getting to know more and more about her and also seeing the kind of volleyball player she will become because if she keeps up the hard work, she really will be something spectacular to watch. Love you, Trish!
Our season has officially kicked into full-gear, and with that our first conference match is on Wednesday against Bethel at their place. This is a very important match for us because we want to start off the new conference well and we know that every team in our conference is very strong, so we will have to be on top of our game even though we will be traveling five hours in a van to get there. Wish us luck and hopefully we will start off the conference strong. I promise to give updates more frequently, so until next week, stay classy MVNU!