Sept. 3, 2007

FAIRFAX, Va. - It has certainly been a busy two weeks; six games later we have advanced to a 4-2 record while facing many hurdles beyond our opponents.

After a grueling two and a half weeks of pre-season we were all very ready for our season opener against George Washington University, part of the D.C. Challenge. After a somewhat rocky start, I was extremely proud of how we pulled together to defeat a very strong GW team. But anyone who has followed our team the past few years will know that we often fall victim to dropping runs of points making it very difficult for us to come back in games. Unfortunately, this plagued us yet again the next day against American University. Although it is easy to get frustrated by this, I am actually glad we are facing these issues early. The team is all too familiar with these frustrations and we are all diligently working to learn from our mistakes and push through them as a team. I think we exemplified our progress perfectly in our convincing defeat over Georgetown only hours after our loss to American. Our growth in just one afternoon makes me extremely optimistic about the remainder of the season.

But as of Monday the 27th of August we entered a whole new dimension as we transformed from athletes, to student athletes. This is always a very shocking and distracting transformation making it imperative that we focus on volleyball, and only volleyball, whenever we enter the gym. This is of course easier said than done. Although certainly not the only issue, I feel this played a part in our loss to Villanova on Wednesday. Personally, I had to leave class early to run across campus (while eating my now cold and soggy sandwich) to make it just in time for the start of the game warm-up. It gets a bit hectic sometimes, but that game reiterated for me the importance of shifting from one world to the next, quickly!

After a video session and a practice we were able to bounce back after Wednesday's match to beat both Howard and Lehigh during our host Brion's Grille tournament. Again I feel we crossed a few hurdles as we learned to not let up until the match is over, or "tighten the noose" as we say.

Of course now we have to be thrown yet another hurdle as construction, or destruction, of the P.E. Building begins. Although we will still be practicing in the P.E. Building several days a week, we are temporarily without a team room and will have to play the remainder of our games in the Field House. It is a mild inconvenience of course, but we must remain focused on our games ahead as we only have two more tournaments to work out all the kinks before conference play begins!