Blogging with Baker
Montana State libero Nicole Baker gives us an in-depth look at Bobcat Volleyball.
September 25, 2012
Home at Last
Finally, the weekend we had long been waiting for rolled around, the weekend we were scheduled to play in our h
After four weeks on the road, having an entire week in Bozeman uninterrupted with the assorted complications arising from plane malfunctions and 6 a.m., flights was, to put it lightly, heavenly. The volleyball wasn’t half bad either, and the coinciding of Homecoming week with our homecoming to Shroyer gym produced a great crowd and an electric atmosphere.
Thursday night saw us competing against an Eastern Washington team that seemed to be struggling with a record we returners were all too familiar with, 0-13. It was important to beat this team, not only to add a conference win to our record, but to firmly establish that the new era of Montana State volleyball was an actuality rather than an intangible idea. The five-set match featured some good volleyball, and some not so good volleyball depending on the game, but we managed to pull out the win in the end.
Our matches versus Portland State are always fun because the added factor of a little sibling rivalry between Kasey Schlatter and her sister Garyn, the setter on the Portland State team. Major props to the Schlatter family for their half MSU/ half PSU T- Shirts they rock to the match-up each year. This past Saturday though, the PSU half of the T-Shirt won out in a four set match.
As frustrating as the loss was, it made our team realize that we cannot rest on the success that we have been enjoying. We have a chance, not only to turn this program around, but to be a great team and a force in the Big Sky. It is a chance that will not be turned into a reality unless we keep striving for more and are perpetually dissatisfied.
So this week we will get back in the gym, get back to work, and focus on giving the community two more wins this upcoming weekend.
September 15, 2012
Final Preseason/First Big Sky Conference Match
This weekend marks the advent of Big Sky conference play, and it has been a rewarding, albeit occasionally heart-attack inducing venture to finally get here. Last weekend we traveled to our coach's old stomping grounds, Athens Ohio, to compete against Belmont, Niagara, and Ohio University. Not only was Ohio the school where our head coach had spent the last four years as an assistant, but it also has the same mascot and fight song as Montana State (although their Bobcat didn't have nearly the same dancing prowess that Champ exhibits).
This was by far the most competitive tournament we had been at til this point; the three teams we were playing had all been to the NCAA tournament the year prior and had a long history of success in their respective conferences. It was a true test of the progress we had made since last season, and for the most part, we were equal to the challenge. Our first game against Belmont was the best we played all season, overwhelming the defending Atlantic-Sun Conference champions in three sets and in a little over an hour of competition time. Our second match of the day versus Niagara was a proverbial nail-biter, but featured a come from behind win after a 2-0 set deficit in Niagara's favor. We fell in three sets to Ohio in our last contest of the tournament, but it was a heartening sign that we could compete against a team ranked 50th in the nation and hold our own.
The Ohio tournament was the perfect training grounds for the start of conference this weekend. I'm currently blogging a day after our first match against the University of North Dakota, newcomers to the Big Sky who have enjoyed dominating their previous conference and are looking to duplicate their success in a new medium. I believe they were picked to finish either third or fourth overall in the preseason poll, so this was a team looking to make a statement in their first Big Sky match of the season.
The five set contest proved to be a tense affair (my mother told me afterwards that she couldn't watch the fifth game and had my father shout scores across the house to her as he watched solo over the computer) but we came away with the win. This victory turned out to be the first time since 2003 that the MSU volleyball team has started conference play with a win, and allowed us to surpass our win total from last season (which was 6) in just the fourth weekend of fall action.
Tonight we face the defending Big Sky champions, University of Northern Colorado, and it's clear that no one expects us to win this evening against a very good conference team. But hey, I always enjoy a good underdog story.
August 28, 2012
Fall Season-First Tournament
This past weekend saw the beginning of our 2012 season, a season we've all greatly anticipated as well as looked upon with apprehension. The team enjoyed success during the tournaments in the spring, but those games act as a training ground, and are merely a shade of the importance fall season holds for collegiate volleyball. The fall will be the season that decides whether the benefits will be reaped from all the months of training and preparation, all the conditioning and weightlifting, and all the time spent away from home in Bozeman for the summer. As much as we all look forward to it, it is a season that this team has struggled in during the past, and I am eager to prove our spring success wasn't merely a fluke but a new precedent for this program. I'm also happy to report that, although there are definitely some improvements that still need to be made, our first fall tournament has reflected these ambitions.
Just as the vast majority of Montana State was arriving for the start of the new school year, we volleyball ladies were leaving it behind to venture to Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Now I must say, when our team travels together by plane, we attract a substantial number of stares from fellow travelers. I don't know whether it's that a group of unusually tall girls (excluding myself) are stomping around the airports in a large pack, whether it' the matching travel suits, or whether it's the enormous amounts of noise us ladies emit when we are together (we've been told the 12 of us are louder than the entire football team combined) but something draws the attention of the general public. We are frequently questioned about what sport we play. Usually, most people assume soccer or basketball, but we will get the occasional curious passerby who offers up something more original, like football. This time around, an inquiring individual asked whether we were returning from the London Olympics. Anyways, enough with the travel tales and onto the volleyball.
Our first match of the fall was versus the host school, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, on Friday night. The first game of the year jitters were apparent, and it may not have been a particularly well executed match, but we managed to pull away with the win in four games. On Saturday, we competed against both Western Illinois and Santa Clara. Our match against Western Illinois went back and forth until the 5th set when we finally found our groove and came away with the win. The match verse Santa Clara was probably the best we have played so far this preseason a
