Winter Olympics brings back memories of competitive figure skating days

By Jenny Buczek
Junior, Setter

Skating is pretty big out in Illinois. My brother started playing hockey when I was 3 or 4 and so I wanted to get out on the ice too. I kind of wanted to try hockey, but my mother suggested figure skating instead.

So I started skating and went to a trainer in my area. At first I didn’t do so well and placed last in my first 3 competitions.

This Olympic gold medalist, Alexei Ulanov from Russia, started coaching at our ice rink and I noticed he kind of used to watch me skate and stuff. So one day my mom decided to call him up and ask if he would have time to train me. At first he said no, but then he was he asked my mom to describe what I looked like. So she did and he was like “I know who she is, I’ll take her.”

So he started training me 4-5 days a week for only about 40 minutes a day, but he worked me so hard it felt like 2 hours each time. At first, he just tried to build my body up and we didn’t even work on moves. Then went to moves.

He always taught me what he called the “Russian way.” He would always say “These other skaters walk on the ice. You have to skate. You have to be fluid and proud.”

So my first competition after he started training me was a pretty high level one. I went out there, performed really well and got second. Basically from then on, I always got first, second or third.

When I would land a new jump, he would never praise me or show excitement. I remember my mom telling me how he would skate over to her and say, “She just landed this jump. Not many people this age are landing this jump. But I’m not going tell her because I don’t want her to get too excited and to lose it.”

That’s just how he was and he would always tell me to expect great results and to never be surprised by them. He taught me a lot about competition—to have a good work ethic, to always just be proud, to be respectful, to attack everything and not to allow anything overcome you because you are strong enough to get over certain obstacles.  

I was about 8 or 9 when I started training with him. He really developed me and made me very athletic. When I was still in middle school, he moved to Miami to become the director of a rink down there. My skating career kind of ended as a result because there wasn’t anybody that was comparable to him in my area.

I love watching figure skating and have enjoyed watching the Olympics. The Russian pair that won gold in the long program, I basically cried after they finished their performance. Just the pure emotion, the pure adrenaline they had after their clean skate really got to me. 

When I have time, I still skate for fun. The last time I went was right before winter break. I was just doing some spins and can still do most of them. I want to get back into it a little bit more and start doing my jumps again. I don’t want to lose it. I think it’s a really good work out too.

Start of semester marks beginning of off-season training

By Don Gromala
Head Women's Volleyball Coach

As a staff, we’re really excited to have the girls back on campus. It was a good break, although it felt a little long. The girls got back at it this past week with the first day of off-season training on Tuesday. Our main focus for the week was strength and conditioning and open gyms just to get them back in the swing of things. We didn’t want to thrust them back into intense training just yet.

We will begin individual workouts this coming week, and for the next month-and-a-half we’ll really focus on technical things—arm swing, hand positioning, platform angles, etc.—that our girls need to work on. Gradually, we’ll progress into more team stuff as we get closer to our spring season. Spring practice will begin in March and we will be playing in four tournaments in April.

The off-season is huge for any program. You’re always going to be losing some great players and experienced players, so you’re trying to develop some new and different leadership. Girls are going to take on different roles and that’s the exciting part of it as a staff to see what kind of growth your team has during this time.

Part of the reason that so much development takes place in the off-season is that it’s a time that allows us to take a step back from the competition and scouting aspects and focus just on ourselves. We saw some great improvements last off-season physically, which then carried over into our season this past fall. Our training focuses on helping our girls become faster, stronger and more explosive.

I am very proud of the work our girls have done in the classroom since coming here. We had a team GPA of over a 3.2 in the fall, which is on par with where we were a year ago. This is such a great group of girls. They understand that to excel on the court, you have to excel in the classroom as well. We’re definitely look forward to getting back-to-back AVCA Team Academic Awards. That hasn’t happened here in a while and is something we want to get year after year and not just every once in a while. We echo those sentiments on the court. We don’t want to just have a good year. We want to continue building and getting better and better and maintaining at the same time.

Unbeaten weekend provides confidence boost for stretch run

By Lauren Engleman
Junior, OH/OPP

Getting two victories this past weekend was great for the program because we’re that much closer to getting back to the MAC Tournament. Kent State hasn’t been able to do that in awhile, so we keep working toward our goal of #11.22.

Winning back-to-back 5-setters is rough on the body and mind. For us, it was a big confidence boost and also let us know that we can push through even when the odds are against us. We didn’t have the momentum in either match after losing that 4th set, but found a way to fight back and get the win.

Sweeping Akron was great for us, especially doing it for the first time since 2009. It’s always great to beat your rival, and I’m really glad we were able to get the win for our seniors.

Personally, I’ve played more the last few matches than I had been previously in conference. I’m so excited to help carry the team to a victory. The coaches gave me an opportunity at the end of our match against Western Michigan, and I was able get kills on all 4 of my attempts. That gave me the confidence to believe that I can help the team.

For these last 4 matches, we have to keep the momentum going in our favor. We need to keep pulling out wins in close sets like we have been and just keeping focusing a little more during those moments where we’re down. 

Wrapping up elementary school visits

As part of a community outreach initiative, members of the Kent State volleyball program have visited elementary schools in the Kent City School District throughout the Fall. Friday marked the fourth and final visit for the Golden Flashes, as members of the team went to Longcoy Elementary to spend time with the students at the school.

Freshmen Payton Moore and Drew Norberg were along for three of the four school visits and reflected back on those experiences.

Payton Moore

For the last trip, they were having their Halloween parties. I started off in a classroom and was at a station where they did this experiment to show density. You pour cornstarch, water and other different liquids and then you see them rise to the top.

Every time that we’ve gone and walked into a classroom, they would get all excited. Usually Liz was with us and they’re not used to seeing a girl that tall. Whenever it would be time to leave, you could tell they didn’t want us to go. Like today, they were on the playground and were screaming “Bye!” at us. I think it just makes their day.

I think the schools were really happy to have us there too. They all told us, “We always get the male athletes. We never get the females athletes here.” So I think interacting with the students was especially important for the girls that like playing sports since we can relate to them better than guys can.

Drew Norberg

I started off today working with a PE class. We stretched with them and overlooked the activities they were doing and got to talk to them a little bit. Then we want into some of the classrooms and read to them. We read Oh, the Places You’ll Go! By Dr. Seuss and asked them questions about it.

Overall, I think it’s been a really good experience visiting with the students. The teachers are trying to get them to realize that playing a college sport is something that they can do someday and that their education is really important, along with their physical activity. I think its’ good for them to meet actual college athletes and hear from us that they can do it as well.

Setting up for a strong finish and return to SPIRE

By Ola Nowak
Senior, Setter

When I heard that I reached 3,000 assists, it was a nice surprise because that is something I don’t keep track of. A big reason that I have been able to accomplish this is because our team has gotten better from when I came here. Obviously, I couldn’t achieve this without my teammates.

I feel like a big reason for the success that we have had this year is because of how close we are as a team. The communication and chemistry on the team got better. We got to know each other better and we feel each other better on the court.

Defense has been something that we’ve done well to help us win matches. In the beginning of preseason, we emphasized defense mostly, and that’s what has kept us going. The big long rallies that we have from getting lots of digs gives us a lot of confidence. We saw how we can beat teams by making them tired because we are digging more balls than last year. Obviously, our hitters are doing a better job of putting balls way this year as well.

Last weekend was a little bit rough, but we are making sure that we pick things up to prepare and get ready for this weekend. We watched the film from last 2 matches to see our mistakes and try to eliminate them. Our goal is still to get to the MAC Tournament and we know what we have to do to get there.

Life as a freshman student-athlete (Part 2)

Today is the second of a two-part entry in which our freshmen discuss their first year as a college student-athlete. This year's four freshmen all came to Kent State from different states, spanning from Florida in the South to California on the West Coast.

Maddie Moxley

My time so far at Kent State has been a mixture of emotions and experiences. Moving this far away from home has been hard, but very rewarding. I feel like I have been coming into my own person because of it. When I get homesick, my teammates are always there for me. It has only been two months and already I have lost track of how many times I’ve thought to myself how lucky I am to have the teammates and coaches that I have.

Learning to manage my time with classes, tests, trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and studying took some getting used to, but after the first week of travel and preseason I finally settled into my routine. I feel like I have everything figured out now and have been focused on school and volleyball.  

One of the most stressful things about the first two weeks was being undeclared in my major. Initially, I had no Idea what it was that I wanted to major in. After my first week of my Intro to Psychology class and a great conversation with one of our seniors, Hannah Herc, I finally declared Psychology as my major. I don’t think I would have been as interested in the subject had it not been for Hannah, but now I am ecstatic about my major and all of my future classes at Kent!!!

Bianca Cifaldi

I really like it here. I was super nervous coming in because I have a big family at home and knew I was going to get homesick. I was definitely homesick a lot at first, but it’s been a lot easier to deal with as I’ve grown closer with all of the girls. Friendships on the team grew very quickly. It didn’t take time for it to get not awkward and we all just kind of fit right in.

Our teams understands that we all do things a lot differently. Usually when you’re with a team, you’re with them for a longer period of time, but being new, you have to get used to everyone and how they react to certain things. I feel like this team does a really good job of it. We all celebrate different and are intense in different ways, but we all deal with it and feed off of it.

Usually I’ not really big in school, but I’ve taken it super seriously and I’m enjoying it. I feel like playing volleyball is helpful for me. If I was just a student, I would feel like I have a lot more free time to do whatever I want and wouldn’t be able to manage my time as efficiently. But being a student-athlete, I definitely take my time more seriously. When I have to be doing homework, I’m doing homework, and that usually doesn’t happen with me. But I’m getting the hang of it.

I definitely realized that I wasn’t in high school anymore when went I went to my lecture class for psychology and there were 400 students and it took me by surprise.