Sept. 10, 2007

Well it's been a pretty disappointing week for Bobcat Volleyball. We played some tough teams this week, opening up with A&M at home on Tuesday night and finishing the week with the CenturyTel Premier, our home tournament.

Since we didn't have class on Monday for Labor Day, we had an early practice and then team lunch that afternoon. Several people, both coaches and players, were battling the stomach bug early this week. Some started over the weekend and some I think came from our lovely team lunch. Ha. Luckily though, everyone was feeling better for the most part by Tuesday for the A&M game.

After beating the Aggies the second game in the match Tuesday night, it seemed like it would be a promising finish. This was not the case though. We stayed close in game three but just seemed to give up in game four. A&M was definitely a good team, but I think if we had just hung in there, we could have gone to five games and possibly won the match. There were some good things to come out of that night, though. We were the first team to win a game against A&M this season, and I think it was inspiring for us to take a game off of another Big 12 team after Baylor. Also, we brought in the second largest crowd in volleyball history that night with over 1,600 fans! It was a great atmosphere to play in and hopefully all you fans will continue to come back.

We felt good going into our home tournament this weekend. Friday morning, we beat Houston in four, which was a great feeling after last year's ugly performance at their place. Brandy's parents made some tasty pulled pork sandwiches for us after the game, and other parents, boosters and volunteers provided us with good food in the hospitality room all weekend, including all the dessert we could ask for.

Friday night was not so good, however. We lost to Cal State-Fullerton in four games. We won the second game and the other games were tight, but we just couldn't seal the deal.

Saturday we woke up to a yummy pancake breakfast in the Maroon and Gold room, and prepared for our third match against a Big 12 team this season. However, it seemed to follow the same pattern. We lost to Missouri in four games and again, it looked like we just kind of gave up at the end. We still haven't gone to five games with a team this season. We need to find a way to not be satisfied beating a big team just one game, and believe that if we can win one game, we can win the whole match.

Hopefully we can pull together some more and keep improving this week going into our tournament in Rhode Island. We leave Wednesday morning, and I'm super excited. This will be the first time I've ever gone anywhere in the Northeast, and on top of that, we're going to spend a day in New York!

See you next week, hopefully with a tournament championship under my belt! :)

Emily