Soph night and pictures galore!

Last night was sophomore night here at Hill College.  I am happy to report that we won in 4 against a very good NCTC team!  This put us at 5-4 in conference (4 wins in a row) and solely in second place.  Right now we know that we are in the regional tournament; we just don't know our seed.  If we win tomorrow at Ranger we will finish in 2nd place by ourselves.  If we lose we will be in a 3 way tie for second place.  Here's hoping for a win tomorrow!

Now, some pictures from last night:

Our four freshmen: (from left) Camryn Kazmierski, Cayleigh Drake, Chelsea Knape and Phyllicia Cross

From left: Brittany Berry, Camryn Kazmierski, and Ayve Alvarado

The entire team and Sophomores parents before the game.

Sophomore setter Haley Goldwater and her mom Melissa at our celebration after the match.

Brittany Berry and family...

Sophomore DS Lauren Myers and her parents

From left: Taelor Higgins, Taylor Jones, Ayve Alvarado, Mariah Everitt, and assistant coach Ashlie Christenson.

From left: Sybil Westrup, Phyllicia Cross, Cayleigh Drake, Camryn Kazmierski, and Chelsea Knape.

Finally, more great news, our sand volleyball court is getting closer to completion!  They have laid the drainage pipes and are about to put in the standards.  Here's a picture I took this morning:

The court is going to be fantastic.  We can't to use it!
Don't forget we have one last home game this Saturday at 1 pm versus Navarro.  Come out and support your Lady Rebels in their last home match this year!

Great win last night!

Last night we went down to Temple and won an amazing match in 5!  We accomplished a lot of firsts last night:

- Our first 5 set win of the year
- Our first win at Temple (at least since I've been here)
- Our first back to back conference wins of the year

As of this point, we are tied for third in our conference, and we play second place Cisco tomorrow at their place.  We've split with them so far this season so I'm hoping we can pull out a win tomorrow and be tied for 2nd!

Also, today they started to pour the concrete for our sand court!  A picture is below.  Hope to see you either at Cisco tomorrow or at home on Tuesday for sophomore night against NCTC.

Friday update

This past week was a little up and down.  We lost to Ranger in 4 on Tuesday, but gained a little revenge on Vernon and won in 4 (25-14, 18-25, 25-19, 25-18).  That match started the second round of conference play.  With 4 games left, we are 1 game out of a play-off spot, so we know what we have to do.

Tomorrow we go on the road to play at Panola, who is a top 20 ranked team.  In my opinion, they were the best team we played last year so they should be very good again this season.  If we play like we did last night, it will be a competitive match.

Sand court update: The rains have slowed construction down a little bit, but here's a picture taken this morning on an absolutely beautiful fall day here in Central Texas.

Weekend update

On Saturday we made the long drive down to San Jacinto for a tri-match.  As a bonus, it was their Dig Pink day so we got to wear our pink shirts again, all for a worthy cause.

Our first match was against Coastal Bend and we did pretty well, winning in 4.  Then we played #5 San Jacinto and lost in 3.  We played solidly in game 3, even having a set point, but couldn't close it out and lost 26-24.  We'll continue our conference play tomorrow against Ranger, who is the only team we have yet to play in our regular season so far.

Finally, I pledged to you to give you updates on the sand court construction.  Here's another picture.  Not a lot has changed but it will start looking pretty good very soon.  Until next time.

A long overdue novel of a post

So I realize that I have not updated this blog in quite some time.  There are many reasons for this; none of them valid.  So over the next few paragraphs (that will probably turn into pages) I will tell you as much as I can.

Our season has been so up and down.  Currently we are 9-16, which is not a good record, but we have been knocking on the door.  Unfortunately it keeps getting slammed in our face as we are 0-6 in 5 set matches.  That's where our biggest issue is.  Last night we went to North Central Texas, a very good team and a place we have never won at, and were up 12-8 in the 5th before losing 16-14.  Now maybe some of that had to do with one of our players getting a concussion from diving into a wall (that's right, our players dive into walls to keep a ball alive), but it doesn't give us an excuse.  So all we can do is get into the gym and get better.

As you just read, one player received a concussion last night.  This past Monday one of our starting middles sprained her ankle so she's missed 2 matches so far.  Two weeks before that our other starting middle severely sprained her ankle and missed about two weeks.  And the week before that Mariah Everitt, a returning outside hitter, tore her ACL and is out for the season.  We have 10 healthy players right now, and are only 2 games back in the conference standings.  Hope is not lost for us yet.

We've also been doing some ancillary activities besides volleyball.  This past Tuesday we had our DIG PINK night and it was a success (other than a loss in, you guessed it, 5 games).  We raised over $500 for breast cancer research, and the final number will be posted early next week.  Here's a picture of the girls before our match:

We have had some good highlights this season.  Haley Goldwater has continued her solid freshman campaign and is currently in the top 25 in the nation in assists, averaging just under 9 a game.  Phyllicia Cross, a freshman OH is in the top 50 nationally in kills per game, and sophomore libero Sybil Westrup is right around 50th in digs per game. 

We've done a good job of getting better as the season progresses.  We've played a brutal schedule, including 5 matches against teams currently in the top 5 national rankings.  While we did lose everyone of those matches, it has shown us what we need to do, which includes more aggressive serving and better defense.  We are taking a lot of baby steps, and I like to think of us this year as the Tampa Bay Rays instead of the Red Sox, for those of you that follow baseball.

Finally, we have some amazing news to share.  I've been talking about how we are building a sand volleyball court for almost a year now.  I've talked about it so much that my friends think I'm joking with them, and they compare it to how long people have been mentioning an Arrested Development  movie. (On a side note, that show is pure genius.  We can find a way to quote it on most road trips).  Well, construction has finally begun!!  Here is a picture to prove it:

What you see in the background are clouds, and we still desperately need rain in Central Texas.  The court should be ready in early November.

Well that is all I have for today.  I promise, nay, pledge to post more photos of the sand court as it is being built.  Until next time...