November 1, 2005 – Ohio State Buckeyes
11/15/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
I hope everyone had a great Halloween!
Here at Ohio State, it has been a BIG week of preparation. Each day our team talked about, focused and prepared for 2 big upcoming matches: Northwestern and Wisconsin. Though coming off a weekend in which the Bucks defeated both Minnesota and Iowa on the road, those victories were last weekend. There are no easy matches in the BIG TEN Conference. For that reason, we moved on mentally! Next up: Northwestern and Wisconsin.
In the BIG TEN Conference we play each team twice, at home and on the road. The first time we played Northwestern it was at their home, Evanston, Illinois. The match went 5 games and we came out on top. This time around we wanted to defeat them more convincingly. Wisconsin was our first Big Ten Conference road trip match. We ended up losing to them in 3 games. Currently sitting at 2nd place in the Big Ten race, we wanted to knock Wisconsin off. With this in mind, the Bucks had tough practices all week. We spent a lot of time on defense and blocking. Knowing Northwestern’s ability to keep the ball in play with tips and off-speed shots, and with Wisconsin’s bigger hitters, our defense was going to be key this weekend.
The Northwestern match was not as crisp as we would have liked, but we got it done! The Buckeyes won 3 games to 1. It was good to see our team fight and just compete hard. The Wisconsin match was exciting because it was on ESPN 2. We had to arrive to the gym early and get head shots taken by the camera crew. We had to say our name, hometown and position. It was cool to see all the cameras set up around the gym before the game! Once it was game time, though, the Bucks forgot all about the cameras (except for when Ashley Kiel almost tackled a camera man chasing a ball down – hahaha). We all fought hard during the match, but did not play our best and were disappointed with the outcome. The good thing is that there are always important things to learn in a match and we only got better!
This coming week… the Buckeyes travel to State College to take on the Nitty Lions.
Wish us lots of luck and…
GO BUCKS!!!!!!!
#13 Marisa Main
