Nearing the End in Kentucky

This past weekend, we traveled to Danville, Kentucky for our last conference tournament of the season. We played Centre, Oglethorpe, DePauw and Millsaps and ended up going 2-2. First up was Centre. We played well in the first game but after that we just didn't play to our potential and ended up losing to them in 5 games. Immediately following the Centre match we went straight into playing Oglethorpe and beat them in four games. Then we went to a really nice restaurant and Joe Dean treated us to a great dinner. The next morning we woke up early and had to play DePauw. We couldn't really get it together and we ended up losing to them in three games. A couple hours later we played against Millsaps and beat them in a very fun 5 game match. Once all of our matches were over we quickly showered and got on the sleeper bus to travel back home. Up next this coming weekend we have some competitive matches. We are all excited to play again!

~Hope Harris and Alessandra Norman

History In the Making

As some of you may know, this past month was a record breaking month for senior Sarah Harris. As of October 16th Sarah holds the all-time career record for digs and kills. In Birmingham-Southern’s brief but successful existence there has yet to be a player who has exhibited such dominance in her all-around game as Sarah. An all-time record is not a stroke of luck or a few good matches; to compile enough great games to hold a season record is difficult enough, but to do this for four straight years exemplifies a great volleyball player. Sarah’s ability to put together four great seasons of volleyball at BSC both offensively and defensively is a testament to her passion and determination to be the best. As someone who has been around BSC volleyball for nearly its entirety, I believe that Sarah’s career performance has proven her to be the best all-around player in Birmingham-Southern history. In a time when BSC volleyball has been playing for no more than pride - in ourselves, our team, and our school - it is refreshing to have an athlete be rewarded for doing just that. Congratulations to Sarah for a hugely successful career at Birmingham-Southern.

~Kyndall Waters

Practice Update: With Only a Few Left

What we worked on in practice last week showed over the weekend, which was awesome!! We focused a lot on blocking, which we had struggled with in California. However, we came out strong as a blocking team against Millsaps on Sunday. I know Alexis alone had seven blocks in that match, which was exciting to see! Practices have been a little bit shorter to give us a little more rest, but it also means that we have to come out very focused for the time that we are in the gym. I hope we do that this week so we can finish out the season strong!

~Christine Denning

California Dreamin'

This past weekend the BSC volleyball team went to California. We left for the airport around 4:00 on Wednesday afternoon. After an extremely long flight, we arrived at our hotel in Thousand Oaks, California around 12 am. Exhausted, we went straight up to our rooms and into bed. The next morning we left our hotel after a good night's rest to do yoga by the beach in Santa Monica. After yoga, we headed to the shops to have some fun. We shopped for about three hours then went back to the hotel and ordered pizza. On Friday morning we woke up, did a little bit of studying, had some lunch, and then it was off to the gym. We arrived early to the gym to scout the competition and then prepared to play.

Our first match of the weekend was against Occidental. They were a seemingly small team with excellent ball control. Unfortunately, we ended up losing the match. After this loss, we decided that we needed to pick up up our game. We went on to beat California Lutheran in the next match. The match went to five games and it was a struggle all the way. After a long day, we got a quick bite to eat and headed back to to hotel.

On Saturday, we left for the gym around 8:15 for our 10:00 match. Our first match of the day was against the University of La Verne. We lost to La Verne in four games. Our second match was against CMS. After three long games of fighting, we lost our second match. The team had a long talk after the match and decided that our play had not been it's best this weekend, and that we were going to focus and work hard in practice the next week and be more prepared for our next game.

We finished around 2:30 on Saturday and went straight from the gym to the beach. After relaxing on the beach and getting some sun for a few hours, we headed to Morgan's house for a home cooked meal. On Sunday morning we packed our bags and headed to the airport. We were all ready to be back home in Birmingham. We are really excited about our home match on Wednesday against Miles College. The match is a Dig for the Cure to support breast cancer treatment and research. Go Panthers!

-Haley Johnson & Shelby Moore

SCAC Central/West Divisional

We think that this weekend was productive even though we went 1-3 because we gave a lot of effort in all of the matches. We started off strong, and kept fighting throughout the games. As freshmen we learned that in order to play your hardest, you need to go out on the court with confidence that your team will win the match. Every match we play we grow more and more consistent in our focus towards having a killer instinct to win the match. We think that playing the top teams in the conference will really help us become a threat in our upcoming season. With this tournament finished, we are really looking forward to the tough competition we will play in California... Surfs up!!!

~Lauren Reibe and Presley Dickson

Continuing the Success

It was a great weekend for Panther volleyball! The team came out strong, beating the hardest team we would play all weekend, DePauw. We did have to go five games, but we pulled it out. The second match we played on Saturday was against Sewanee. The team struggled to stay on our level of play. Instead we played down. But in the end, we managed to still win in three. That night, we celebrated Amanda's 19th birthday at a BBQ restaurant of her choice. We even got chocolate cake! On Sunday we played Oglethorpe and Hendrix, both who we beat in three. These games were opportunities to focus on things that we wouldn't otherwise be able to work on with harder teams. It was great practice keeping focused also. We came out of the weekend 4-0, extended our winning streak to 6 straight games. Hopefully next weekend we can make it 10!

~Alexis Pappas and Chelsea Pittman

Victory at LaGrange

This weekend we went 2-0, our first weekend with a winning record. This will give us momentum going into next weekend, but we feel like we struggled with our focus at times. It's going to be really important that we learn to keep our focus during practice and matches as we will face increasingly difficult teams, so it can become second nature to us.

We left early Saturday morning to play against Piedmont and Berry over at LaGrange College in Georgia. We got there really early, so we rode through the city looking for a place to eat. As we passed though downtown, we saw that they were having a breast cancer awareness fair in the town square. Everything was pink! There were pink balloons and pink banners and everyone was wearing pink. Even the water in the fountain was pink. As we walked through we were received with warm welcomes and wishes of good luck. Later, while we were waiting for our bus, we got to see the Shriner's parade and got candy! After we finished playing, we stopped for pizza for dinner on the way back, a tasty end to our Saturday.

-Shelby Moore & Alessandra Norman

Practice Update

I think practices are really going great. Getting up early was tough at first, but getting things accomplished at practice make me feel great the rest of the day. After our tournaments we come to morning practices knowing what we have to work on, and how to improve for the upcoming weekend. I like having practices in the morning because I have the afternoon to work on homework, or catch up on my sleep. I have really enjoyed the practices and can't wait to see how well the team has come together come October.

~Lauren Reibe

The Travel to Texas

This weekend we traveled to San Antonio, Texas to play at Trinity University against Austin College, Southwestern University, Millsaps College and Colorado College in our first round of conference matches.

We flew out of Birmingham on Thursday afternoon with confidence to face the upcoming challenges. We arrived in San Antonio that night, got our rental cars and went straight to the hotel for bed. After a good night's rest we woke up early, got a big ol' Texas omelet and headed to the gym.

The first match of the day against Austin College was competitive. Right before the match, Coach April gave us a very inspiring pre-game talk about the defiance of other teams' expectations of us and how we should prove them all wrong. We decided to put our talking into action and kick some 'Roo bottom. Both teams played well but Austin College came out on top in 3 games.

Our second match against Southwestern was very similar to our first. We fought with a lot of heart even when we were down but lost the match in 4 games. After the first day was over, even though we had two losses, we felt pretty good about the way that we had played. We knew that we just had to keep in mind that we were a brand new team and we still had a long way to go in learning from each other.

After a long, tiring day of volleyball we went to the Swift's house for dinner and dessert. Everything was very delicious and the family was extremely nice.

Day two of the tournament went better than the first. Our first match against Millsaps we came out with a lot of energy and excitement. We beat them in four games with a well-deserved win. The second match was against top-ranked Colorado College. We knew it would be a challenge and that we needed to come out strong and confident. We ended up losing to the Tigers in four games but we didn't hang our heads too low because we knew that we played well all weekend.

After we finished playing we drove downtown to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk. We had a lot of fun and took some good pictures. That night we had dinner at the Legler/Harris household. We ate Mexican food and watched the Longhorns beat the Raiders. With a belly full of TexMex we headed back to the hotel and passed out.

The next morning we said our goodbyes and left for the airport. The next stop for the Panthers is this coming weekend at LaGrange, GA and we will be playing against Berry College and Piedmont College. Go Panthers!

~Hope Harris

First Road Trip

The first trip on the road is always an interesting experience. The traveling we do has always made our team much tighter, and the same was true this year! Luckily for us, we got to experience some Memphis BBQ on Saturday night. Yes, the food was good, but the shenanigans that went on with the food were even better (and I'm sure the pictures from the night will prove this). Kyndall and I had an ongoing straw-wrapper war throughout the night, and on the way out Jen and I decided to take this war one step further. We took some ammo with us (a roll and a hushpuppy) and headed out to the bus, attacking Kyndall on the way. The hushpuppy was launched back at me and left an awesome greasy welt on my arm. The war continued on the bus where Jen attacked/sat on Kyndall. As the pictures show, Kyndall was quite thrilled! Anyways, as the season continues, I'm sure we will have many more bonding food experiences on the road!
~Christine Denning (JR, Arizona)


Going into the weekend I was really excited to play in our first tournament, especially after our win the previous Saturday. I was hopeful that we would build on the great things we did that are key to our success. We communicated loud, husted for every ball, and most importantly played as a team. Unfortunately, we took a step back. We came out timid and quiet our first game Friday and as a result, we lost. When we met after the game everyone was feeling low and we all agreed that we weren't having fun. As an upperclassman, I immediately started off a conversation to our team and said it in a way that would pump everyone up for the next game. We went downstairs in the lockerroom before our next game and agreed we needed to have fun and communicate to be successful. Then we played games to cheer everyone up and get pumped up for our next game. We won our next match in 3 sets! I was so proud of us for changing our attitudes so quickly and putting the things we discussed in our meeting into action.

In our first game Saturday we came out ready to play but once again, we didn't communicate like we needed. There were good things and bad things but overall we played too inconsistent. We lost in 3 sets. We were all upset after the game and when we met we all agreed there are a lot of little things we need to do to be successful and that we're just not doing them. We are a young team so it will take time playing together and focusing on little things for it all to come, but I thought we improved a little. For our forth and final match on Saturday, we were all tired of losing and came out talking and ready to play. We improved our passing and other little things we needed to work on but still made too many errors. We were down 2 sets and came back in the third and won it. We played with a lot of intensity and desire to win, but our inconsistency still go the best of us and we lost in 4 sets. Even though we lost, I was proud of the way we played and that we improved a lot. We are all still tired of losing but are working everyday on what we need to do to be successful and are trying to improve.
~Jennifer McKannan (JR, Alabama)

Lone Senior - Sarah Harris: Her thoughts about this past weekend and more...

Going into the first match of my senior year I was not quite sure what to expect. After playing for three years with the same group of girls, I was a bit nervous as to how a brand new team was going to react in a competitive setting. Apparently, I was not the only girl on the team who felt the same way, and it definitely showed Friday night. Feeling a little discouraged and angry about the Friday night match, I left the locker room that night and decided that this was not how I wanted my senior year to be, and after talking to a few of the girls, I think we all came to agree that another match like that was not going to fly.

Saturday morning at breakfast with the team there seemed to be a calm about us and a confidence going into our afternoon match. Even though it was not always pretty, we made our mark on Martin Methodist and redeemed ourselves from the previous night. Our nerves were not gone, but they were better controlled and we played more like a team and not just six individuals out on the floor. Even though the majority of the players out on the floor were underclassman, I was very happy with the way we reacted to our Friday night disaster. Having six newcomers out of a roster of eleven does not leave a lot of room for depth on a team, but with the group of girls we have I think we are athletic and competitive enough to have a strong desire to win and be successful this season and still have a bit of fun a long the way.

I have been a student-athlete at Birmingham-Southern for all four years of my collegiate career I have seen a number of changes around me. From new buildings and bodies of water being added to campus to cafe food going from bad to worse. But the biggest changes that have effected me the most are the coaching changes I have experienced every year while at BSC. I have not had the same combination of head coach and assistant coach at BSC all four years that I have been here. Each year I have either a new head coach or an assistant coach, and fortunately enough our team has been successful each year. I was excited to hear that April was going to be the new head coach at Southern because I knew about her from playing volleyball in our home state, Texas. Now with a new head coach and new players the table is set for the future of BSC volleyball and after my days are done here I will be watching to see what happens.

When people ask me how I feel about playing with my sister they are usually surprised by the answer I give. Most people think that playing with their sibling would cause a lot of problems with bickering over stupid things like who's wearing who's shirt. I'm not going to pretend like Hope and I have a perfect relationship but we do know how to put our family relationships aside when we are on the court... most of the time. But with sisterly emotions aside, I really have enjoyed playing with hope last season and watching her grow as a volleyball player and a person.

The first weekend of our long string of away games is approaching and we are working hard every morning in the gym to prepare. I am excited to see what the weekend has in store for us and to see what we can do on enemy turf. GO PANTHERS!
~Sarah Harris (SR, Texas)

From the players point of view...THEIR experiences so far...

When I finally decided on a college my senior year in high school, the anticipation and excitement of what to expect was constantly on my mind! You are once again a freshman, you are on your own, you're away from home, and you're about to start playing volleyball for some scary coach and teammates you have never met before! It can be a very overwhelming and intimidating situation! I did my workout religiously over the summer and hoped I would be able to hang with the new elite level of volleyball! When summer finally came to an end and it was time for me to report to BSC all my fears, insecurities, and uncertainties were put to rest within that first week of practice!! BSC Volleyball is hard work, dedication, and determination; but it is also rewarding, exciting, and SO much fun!! All of the girls on the team are extremely welcoming and I know that I have already made friendships that will last a lifetime, especially with the other freshman in my class! Coach Fricke is also an incredible coach who challenges and pushes you to be better while at the same time encouraging you and letting you know you have her full support!! The 2009 season has barely started, but I have never been more certain that BSC Volleyball is where I'm supposed to be! It has made the one of the biggest and scariest transitions in my life one of the most incredible experiences!! I look forward to my many more practices, travels, and matches not only this season, but for the next three years!! I LOVE BSC VOLLEYBALL!!!
~Presley Dickson (FY, Alabama)


I have been loving Birmingham-Southern volleyball so far! Being on the team has helped make the transition so much easier. I was immediately submersed into a group of friends, and arriving early helped me get to know the campus before everyone else gets here. Preseason was hard with two-a-days and everything, but it definitely helped our team a lot. It was certainly manageable, and we had a lot of fun. The team gets along great and I am so excited for the rest of the season! We have already improved from the first to the second match, so I can't wait to see how much we grow!
~Chelsea Pittman (FY, Florida)


Preseason was a blast this year! It was a very busy time, and I had to learn quickly that my mom and dad wouldn't be there to wake me up in the morning for practices...I HAD to use an alarm clock. The practices were intense, and always a great learning experience. The gap between high school and college volleyball is different, but you quickly get the hang of it. I've had so much fun making friends with everyone on the team, and I can't wait to see how we come together on the court this season.
~Lauren Reibe (FY, Alabama)


Preseason is tough, but definitely worth the work that goes into it. When I first started practicing, I felt like I wasn't really prepared to play at the collegiate level, but I feel that I have made progress and am improving with every practice. It was really nice to have a group of people to go to and know rather than coming to school with all the other freshman and not knowing anyone. I can't wait to see how the season goes and look forward to the next four years at BSC.
~Shelby Moore (FY, Louisiana)


Preseason two-a-days were definitely a challenge!! Bit I looked forward the whole time to getting in the gym and getting better and helping my team get better especially with such an awesome group of girls. Getting here early was a really big weight off my shoulders because we got to know the campus really well before classes started, and not to mention I had the advantage of making really good friends in advance. I love the team and our chemistry and cannot wait to see how we develop over this season and the next couple of years. This group of girls and the potential I can can see keeps me motivated to get up in the mornings for 7am practices!
~Alexis Pappas (FY, Colorado)

First Win Under Our Belts

Well, it's official ... Our first two matches are out of the way ... and the butterflies are gone :) With only one returner it was bound to happen but we pulled through after losing the first match on Friday night but bouncing back on Saturday afternoon with a victory!!

Our freshman are going to post some of their experiences they have had since arriving here on campus ... so keep checking back.

Oh and one last thing ... we will be traveling to the Rhodes Fall Classic this weekend ... wish us luck.