2008 Woodie Awards
ISU Breaks 0-3 Losing Streak
Brandy Egertson
Issue date: 9/5/07 Section: Sports
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Before the match began the ISU volleyball team was honored as they received an Academic Award from the American Volleyball Coach Association. In order to receive the award the team had to maintain an average 3.30 GPA through out last year. ISU was one of only three universities receiving this award in the Big Sky Conference.
This match marked the ninth consecutive time ISU has played their first home game of the season against UMW. ISU began the match with a current season record of 0-3, and was looking to break their losing streak and add to UMW's 0-4 record..
ISU won the first game of the match 30-18. Charlee Kinghorn led the team in kills with 7, for the game and Christine Van Orden 'set' the tone with 13 assists. The team had an overall .486 hitting percentage.
ISU won the second game of the match by 13 points with a final score of 30-17. The team's average hitting percentage went up to .514
During the first two games, ISU maintained a significant points lead. In the third match, ISU's points lead was threatened as UMW came close several times to evening the score. However, it would seem as though there wasn't much struggle as ISU went on to win 30-15. Kinghorn again led the team with 17 kills and Emily Waldron chipped in 12 kills of her own. Van Orden dominated with 28 assists. The team's final hitting percentage was .277.
Van Orden commented that the close competition during the third match didn't worry her much and she felt confident in the win and knew the team would pull through. When asked about how she felt comparatively from the team performance last weekend to this game she replied, "… a lot better, a lot better, this is our team and we're only going to get better…..this is exactly what we needed, the home game. The fans were great." When asked what clicked for the team tonight she stated, "great passes, good hitting that came in aggressively, everything clicked.
When Kinghorn was asked what the edge was for the team tonight she replied, "the want to win, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could do it." She stated that talking to each other more was a factor in their big win for the evening. She felt that blocking was a weakness but that the team was a taller team than average and that working with the timing would improve the team's blocking. She expressed the concern that other teams were bigger and that blocking would be an important factor in competing with larger teams.
Head Coach Mike Welch seamed very pleased with the results of the game , "They played the way I was expecting them to play all along." When asked about the team's blocking he expressed appreciation for the team's aggressive blocking but that it takes, "…a lot of discipline to go from being a very good blocking team to being an excellent blocking team." When asked about Katie Edgson playing the back position he stated that she hyper extended her elbow. She can't block without fear of doing more damage, the doctors and coaches would be reevaluating the injury
next week.
With better play and a win under their belts, the ISU women will look to continue their improvement as the season gets underway.
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