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.