Hey there Islanders fans, we are back for another update!
On Tuesday we traveled to Houston to play the Owls at Rice University in their home gym. We were very excited to get a chance to compete against this team, as we have played against them before. The team arrived in the locker room and we played our pregame jams to get us loose and ready to play at 6 p.m. The first whistle was blown and we started the match off with the first kill, immediately followed by a block straight down on their right side hitter. We were feeling pretty good and fought back and forth for each point with the Owls. We were coming close to the end of the match and were just a few points down, so we were thinking of how we could continuously score. The match plan was to serve tough, get them out of system, and to defend their middles, and the rest would fall into place. We took care of most of those things, just had a few more errors than Rice. Well we were ready to battle again. In the second set it was a point for point match as their middles started to really step up against our defense. We fought hard but were a few points shy of claiming the win of the second set. Intermission approached and we joined in the locker room to keep our spirits alive and receive some motivational words from Coach Graystone. After listening to what he had to say, as well as some of the leaders on the team, you could tell that we were ready to go out and claim the third set. The third set was underway, and we struggled to get a few points on the board. Once we were able to side out, we gave ourselves a chance to get back in it. The Owls played an extremely clean set as their offense made a small amount of hitting errors, and in the end they came out with the win.
There were many good pieces to take away from the match, and we also were exposed to what our weaknesses and tendencies are. This is the joy of preseason as you get to see what your team is truly made of, and just how far you can push the limits. Scheduling a tough preseason has been a great opportunity for us to challenge ourselves as well as be challenged by other teams. We are beginning to learn who our go to players are, our strongest parts of the game, as well as looking to claim our team's identity. I believe that we are learning a lot about ourselves this far, and it is paving the way for success down the road. We arrived back in Corpus late Tuesday night, and were up early the next morning to return our laundry and get ready for a solid practice at 2 p.m. Wednesday was a day to focus on skills and what we truly needed to get ironed out before we take off for California on Thursday.
Good morning it's GAMEDAY! We arrived Thursday at the school at 5:45 a.m. to head to the airport. We were extremely excited to head to California for the weekend to see and compete against some unfamiliar faces. We arrived early afternoon and were able to experience the area as some of us our tourists to this state. Maddie Doud and Brianna Brink are excited to be here in their home state and have their friends and family in the gym this weekend. We will take on Long Beach State, Loyola Marymount, St. Mary's and Northern Colorado. This will be a great weekend full of competition, battling and lots of learning.
Keep up with the news on Twitter, and keep rooting for your ISLANDERS!
Ashley Phelps
