Mid-season recap and looking towards MAC competition

By Don Gromala
Head Women's Volleyball Coach

The preseason ended on a high note and we feel good about where we’re at as a program overall. Obviously, you’d always like to have a couple of matches back, but I think those were all teachable moments. We’ve taken something away from everything we’ve done, even when we win.

I was pleased with how we played both offensively and defensively over the weekend. The defense has always been there, but the offense has picked up and allowed us to win close sets.

The biggest thing over the past year has been our players getting accustomed to what we expect as coaches, and also our staff getting to know our players. We came in with the season last year and it takes a while to know how people perform in certain situations. We all know what to expect from each other and there aren’t many surprises any more.

Overall it’s been a pretty good experience for our girls. We’ve been playing some pretty good teams and teams similar to a lot of the schools in the MAC, which is why we scheduled the way we did. Teams in the MAC will know us better than the teams that we’ve played. They’re going to know things about us that we don’t know, which we’re looking forward to helping make us a better team.  

We’ve been very successful these past two weeks and hopefully that carries over into the MAC season, especially starting on the road. It’s going to be tough going and playing our rival the first match. And then we go to Buffalo, which has a unique environment with a bigger open space that’s tough to play in, so it’s going to be a good challenge for our girls.

Our goal is to get into the MAC Tournament and hopefully once we’re there hit the ground running and playing at a high a high level like we are now. I do think that our girls have another level of ability within them that they haven’t reached yet. 

2013 Golden Flashes Classic champions

Coming home to the M.A.C. Center...finally

By Hannah Herc
Senior, Libero

This past weekend was great for our team. We won two of three with the only loss being in 5 to Marshall. I think our comeback win on Friday after being down 0-2 gave the team a lot of confidence for the rest of the weekend.

One of the areas we've really been excelling in is defense. We out-dug all of our opponents this weekend, which is one of our goals and a huge step for us. When our team hustles on defense and keeps the ball from hitting the floor, it seems to frustrate our opponent and we gain confidence as well.

The team has grown a lot every weekend and learned from each tournament. We're really hoping to put everything together for the home tournament this weekend. Our goal is to carry over the energy and intensity we had over the weekend and bring it into the M.A.C. Center and show everyone what Kent State is all about with our hard work and never give up attitude.

We had an awesome home crowd at the exhibition we played a few weeks ago and set a new student attendance record. It was really great to have so much support, especially from our peers. We hope everybody can make it out to a match this weekend.

Polish pride and fun in the sun in Cali

By Ola Nowak
Senior, Setter

Last week was exciting for me as we played an exhibition against Dąbrowa Górnicza, which is a professional team from my home country of Poland. When I heard that a Polish team was coming to Kent, I thought maybe it would be some team from a lower league. But when they said it’s going to be Dąbrowa, I was like “Oh, that’s going to be interesting competition.”

I used to watch them on TV when back home and have watched a lot of videos of them on YouTube. I met the whole team before the match. Competing against Dąbrowa was truly an honor and it was a great experience to see what a really high level of competition looks like live.

Even though we lost, I think our team did some things well. They stressed us a little bit, but we stressed them out as well. And I think the challenge of playing against a team like Dąbrowa will help us when we get to MAC play.

Then we flew to California on Thursday to play in a tournament at Cal State Fullerton. This was my first time going to California and there’s a completely different atmosphere in that part of the USA. The weather was also different as it was really sunny and hot.

Right after we got there, we went to Manhattan Beach and got to spend some time there. The view on the beach was beautiful. We saw the place where they play the professional beach volleyball tournament. It felt like summer again and we all enjoyed spending time in the sun.

After our match Friday night, we went to Disneyland for dinner at the House of Blues. Everybody was really excited about being able to go there and it was definitely a really cool experience.

This past weekend was a little bit rough for us on the court, but it’s still early in the season. We were so close to winning our final match against William & Mary. We gave up a couple of runs and they were just more consistent in the final set. Overall, we did a pretty good job on defense and just have to put the kill away.

I think it’s going to be a good season. Even though we have the majority of the team back from last year, we are still learning each other on the court. We have some newcomers in the starting unit and we’re still getting comfortable with each other. Hopefully we will win a few matches this weekend and come back to Kent feeling good for our home tournament next weekend. If we play better and more consistent as a team, we will be ready to go when we start playing MAC schools.

Kent State and Dąbrowa Górnicza after Monday's exhibition match.