3 matches in less than 24 hours...

We came into the weekend wanting another tournament championship.  We knew it was going to take some great volleyball combined with mental toughness and limited errors.  The bad news...we didn't get the championship, the good news...we saw signs of a really great team!

We started off with a strong Northwestern team.  We felt as if we matched up pretty well with them, our strengths were their strengths and it was going to be a battle in the MB position and we were excited to see it.  We didn't get the result we wanted, we ended up losing in 4.  We struggled offensively and our defense didn't step up to help out.  Northwestern played a great game and I'm excited to see how they do this season in the Big 10.

Our next match was Saturday morning at 10:00 against Utah.  Utah was struggling in the video we received and had lost the night before to Morehead State.  Our game plan was to shut down their OH's and make their MB's beat us.  Offensively, we wanted to beat their seams in transition, make them pinch in and worry about our MB's and pump the ball to our OH/RS and attack them again.  The first set, everything looked really great.  But just like every great volleyball team, teams make an adjustment and that is exactly what Utah did.  Their MB's came alive, worked hard in transition, and made us change our game plan.  They picked up our defense and we weren't ready for it.  Utah made great adjustments during the match and this is something we need to get better at as our season progresses.  We lost a tough one in 4.

Our 3rd and final match of the day was going to be the toughest.  We were going to face a very scrappy Morehead State team.  For our 2 players from Louisville, it was a huge rivalry, since they played HS volleyball against most of the Morehead team and Whitney Craven's cousin is on Morehead State's team as well.  We knew Morehead would overload zones offensively so we were going to have to play great 1-on-1 defense and have a disciplined block.  Offensively, we felt our tempo offensively was quick enough in transition to beat them.  It was a mentally tough match, with both teams going back and forth, but we were very proud to come away with a 3-set sweep. Our defense matched Morehead's scrappiness and it is exciting to see that continue through the season.

As we had our final meeting after our Morehead State match, we looked at our watch to see 6:00PM, exactly 24 hours since we started warming up for our first match of the tournament on Friday.  Three matches in 24 hours, not the results we wanted, but the finish was great to see! 

For her efforts, Morgan Springer was named All-Tournament.  She passed over 1/2 the court the whole weekend in serve receive and vocally started to take control of the backrow and played her best defense of the season.

We open up at home this coming weekend!  Very excited.