Sept. 17, 2007

FAIRFAX, Va. - Pre-conference play is officially over and now it counts! On Sept. 22nd we will travel to Harrisonburg for our first conference match against rival, James Madison, to begin the race to the CAA tournament in November. After four weeks of tournaments, we will be entering said match with an overall record of 7-5.

As you can tell by our record, we dropped a few matches since my last entry. On Sept. 6th we took the bus to Pittsburgh for a tournament hosted by the Pitt Panthers. Unfortunately, we lost to Pitt in four, once again cursed with dropping runs of points. The next day the curse remained as we dropped sets that should not have been dropped; however, in the end we were able to beat both Buffalo and UAB to take second place in the tournament.

After a short week of practice we were ready to head to Tampa, Florida for our last tournament of the season (save the CAA tournament of course). Unfortunately, we were not able to walk away with those highly desired sub-tropical tans, but most fortunately, we were able to walk away with one "W" and three very competitive matches played. Our first loss came to University of Central Florida. This match was a classic case of the proverbial sports roller coaster. Needless to say, we ended the match on one of our many lows.

The next day our main goal was to find a less violent ride and remain steady throughout the match; I think we achieved this fairly well as we beat Texas A&M Corpus Christi in three. But that evening we found ourselves square in the center of the very loud and crowded Bull country, as we faced USF. Although we lost in four, I think we played extremely well against a very strong team. And if we can play as well as we did against a team like USF, I like our chances for conference play!

Planning has also begun for the much anticipated student-athlete picnic at the end of the month. With our winning performance last year our expectations are high and planning and choreography has begun. "PK" (Coach Pat Kendrick) has a bit of a confession to make; that is all I will say.