Volleyball Player Blog
Entry #8, Gina Baldwin (RJr., Mitchell, S.D.)
After almost three weeks of two a days our opportunity to compete against someone other then ourselves was here. The bus for Madison, Wisconsin left at 8am Thursday morning; the eight hour trip provided all of us a chance to catch up on some sleep. Once we arrived in Madison we found our hotel and relaxed a bit before we went to practice. The trip from our hotel to the Fieldhouse was a short one. Entering the Fieldhouse we all immediately noticed the NCAA tournament appearances banners and recognized the Wisconsin volleyball tradition. But once practice started we weren’t concerned with anyone but ourselves and what we had to do to be successful the next couple days. After practice we headed out to supper then back to hotel to get a good night sleep before our game.
Game day finally arrived and we were all excited to show off all our hard work in the preseason and show everyone what we could do. We ate a good breakfast then came back and relaxed then went over our scouting report for Ohio one more time. After discussing what Ohio was going to do against us Coach talked about what we needed to do. He told us to have no fear and that we were the underdog but we were going to surprise a lot of people this weekend. We then went to eat our pre game meal and arrived at the Fieldhouse for our serve pass time. After our serve pass time we went back to our locker room and coach came and talked to us again and give us confidence going into our first match. Surprisingly I wasn’t experiencing any first game jitters or nervousness but I was excited to get on the court and play the game. Well maybe I was a little nervous because I may have accidently started the game before the ref even blew the whistle, but once the game really started our team was relaxed and just played the game. Even though we lost to Ohio in three games we had many positives things to look at. We competed with a very good team, a team that made it to the Sweet Sixteen last year. Coach told us after the game that we should be very proud of what we did and I think we were all happy with our performance.
Game day two started very early but we were ready to go to take on Duke. We had breakfast and scouting report before we headed to the gym. Coach told us to believe that we belonged with these teams and that we could play with them. Once again we did not get the result we wanted but we improved through out the match and game three was very close. Once again we were all pleased with our performance and we could see that we were on the verge of taking games from these very good opponents. We had quite a bit of time before taking on Wisconsin so we went and relaxed in our hotel and had our pre game meal. We arrived at the Fieldhouse in time to watch Ohio and Duke play. It put it into perspective for me watching those two teams compete; I never thought I would get to say that I played against Ohio, Duke, and Wisconsin in the Fieldhouse. After realizing how lucky I was I was ready to go for our last match. The atmosphere for our last match was much different we were playing against the home town and they had a great fan base. Playing in front of a bunch of people really makes the game more fun. Once again we competed well but didn’t get the result we wanted. All of us realized that we had nothing to be disappointed in though we competed well and made strides in all three matches, we had nothing to hang our heads about. Coach also told us that we made a statement that we belong with these types of teams and that we can compete with them.
We arrived back in Vermillion Sunday afternoon ready to get back to practice with a new confidence. We are anxious to practice this week and fix some small things so that when we take the court on Friday in Des Moines we come out with some victories!
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