President Victoria Vucich and Vice President Brie Saur of the women’s club volleyball team strive to return to nationals this year and win first place for the second year in a row.

“We want to win and we want to try hard,” Vucich said.

The team’s season started out well with its home tournament last weekend which lasted from 8 a.m. to 10:15 p.m. The tournament consisted of 15 teams with NC State’s team coming in second.

“We’ll take it; we’ll come back for first next time,” Vucich said. “It’s fun though; it’s definitely worth it.”

The club was honored during halftime at one of NC State’s soccer games.

“The advisor e-mailed us, asking us if they could recognize us for winning nationals, which is really cool,” Vucich said. “We all got to go out on the field and they announced each of our names and gave a little spiel about our whole year and our season and that’s our claim to fame. We got a big trophy, it’s going to be the first one in the trophy case over there because no one else has won anything. [We’re] making history.”

The club itself consists of two teams, Black and Red. Members are allowed to move from one team to the other for reasons such as improving, injury or illness. It’s easier to do since the club’s players can cover any position.

“Our Black Team is our first team,” Saur said. “And basically the only difference is we go to nationals which is in St. Louis this year. And then our Red Team is our second team, and they go to pretty much all the same tournaments we go to, practice on the same court as us. There’s really not that much difference other than nationals.”

This also allows for more girls to play the sport that everyone in this club loves.

“I know App has like 16 or something, it’s kind of crazy,” Saur said, “But we think two is good to keep the competition level up while giving enough players a chance to play.”

Setter Saur and right side attacker Vucich explained what they love about playing a club sport.

“The time commitment is perfect for me,” Saur said. “We only have two practices a week, a couple tournaments a semester and they’re only one day. I know I was looking at playing on a varsity team and getting recruited, but it’s just too much of a time commitment especially since I want to do engineering, so that would be difficult.”

Vucich also enjoys playing on a club team because it’s completely student-run.

“Our club sports don’t have a coach or anything,” Vucich said. “We run it ourselves so I like that aspect of it because we don’t have to be controlled by a third party. We get to make the decisions so we can do what we think is best for the team. So I think that’s pretty cool being able to lead [the team] and be a teammate.”

“It’s fun, but it’s also hard because a lot of these girls are our friends too,” Vucich said of being club president. “So it’s really tough to make the best team decision while taking into account everyone’s personal opinion and feelings and everything. That part is tough.”

The club’s next tournament is Nov. 4 and is hosted by UNC-Chapel Hill.

“It’s a league tournament which means it places us in a ranking for nationals,” Vucich said. “We’re required to go and we want to go and do well. Also place well for nationals.”

Both Vucich and Saur plan on going to nationals and are striving for their team to place first again.

“We got fifth the year before and then first last year so we’re just gonna keep it going,” Saur said. “We want to get better this year and do well. Practices are really productive.”