Following a string of tough losses, the women’s volleyball team hits the road this weekend looking to bounce back against two teams it has seen earlier in the season in Maryland and Boston College.
“The girls have a great energy right now,” coach Bryan Bunn said. “They’re still working hard. They know these are winnable matches for us. We get a couple breaks here and there and we’ll be on the right track.”
But while the recent on-court results have not been encouraging, the team feels it is learning and improving with each game.
“We’re not really worried about the outcome of our weekends,” senior middle blocker Jana Angel said. “We’re worried about the process of those weekends. That is what coach really emphasizes. It’s not really about the games, it’s about the practice. He really emphasizes practice over the games because those are going to determine the games.”
The Pack showed it can match up against both teams in its first meetings, losing to Maryland 3-1 and beating Boston College 3-0.
“All the teams that we’ve played, whether we beat them or whether we lost to them, we’ve all gone back and said, ‘We could have defeated that team,'” Angel said. “Now that we all know that, it’s going to be a much better streak for us from here on out.”
Sophomore defensive specialist Alexa Micek said beating Boston College earlier in the season makes her all the more determined to make another statement against the Golden Eagles.
“We want to make them scared to see us again,” Micek said. “We want to beat them so bad that they never want to play us again.”
The loss to Maryland serves as even greater motivation for freshman middle blocker Brie Merriwether.
“For teams that we lost to, for me, I get pissed,” Merriwether said. “If I play them again and they already beat me once, I’m not going to let it happen again. There is more of a push when you’ve lost the first time.”
And while the earlier games also help with scouting, the Wolfpack’s performance will come down to executing its game plan.
“You remember players and you remember their tendencies, but every game is a new day and anyone can beat anyone,” senior defensive specialist Taylor Pritchard. “You keep in mind things we can capitalize on to help us when we’re playing teams. That’s why we have scouting reports and we keep them. It’s the same players probably running the same things. They’re not going to have changed things unless they have an injury or something. So it’s the same game plan, it’s just a matter of what have we done to get better to beat them this time around.”
The Pack (12-11, 2-9 ACC) sit in 11th place in the ACC, just one spot above last-place Boston College (8-16, 0-11 ACC), while Maryland is in sixth (15-8, 6-5 ACC).
State will take on Maryland in College Park at 7 p.m. Friday and Boston College in Chestnut Hill at 1 p.m. Sunday.
