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)