Marquette University Athletics
Laura Farina's Coaching Diary
10/20/1999 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Every Wednesday for the remainder of the season, Laura Farina, Marquette University's head volleyball coach, will share her thoughts on the Golden Eagles' volleyball team.
October 20, 1999
Last week was busy. We played the USPV team on Wednesday, hosted Houston on Friday, and traveled to Tampa to play the University of South Florida on Sunday. Someone asked me the previous week if I regretted scheduling the pro team. Not at all. It is so good for players to play against teams who have incredible athletes and play the game at a high level. It was an opportunity to improve and play some of our players in positions that we have not had them play.
The match on Friday night was competitive. I really felt that Houston was in for an upset over the weekend. They were undefeated in conference play and I thought we might have been able to catch them off guard. Houston played well, we did too. However, our unforced errors when the opponent had a point-scoring opportunity really hurt us. For example, we would have a great pass, good set, and hit the ball way out of bounds or in the net. Those sorts of errors really deflate any momentum that we were trying to build.
One of the players asked me after the match, "Coach, we have worked so hard this past week in practice. Why aren't we winning right now?" One week of hard work does not guarantee a win. As a matter of fact, there are never any guarantees no matter how hard you work. I pointed to the issue that each of them have had moments during the season when they are not present, meaning that at any given time during practice we have rarely had all 13 players mentally and physically show up for the day. They agreed. Quite simply, those breaks hurt us. We prepare and win matches in practice. In order to be fully prepared, we need the entire team ready to go - that begins in practice. None of us can expect to arrive on game day and truly think that all of this magically comes together before the match for us win. We need everyone present in practice - physically but, more importantly, we need them there mentally.
Some good things that did come from the match were the middles. Chris Curtin and Amy Levin had incredible numbers both in attacking and blocking. We have been pushing to get the middle attack into more of the offense. Our passing, defense, and setting really made that happen. Just as important, those two performed and executed.
The trip to South Florida was quick. We have not played well on the road and with Chris Curtin coming down with the flu the day we flew out, I was concerned. Maybe I should not have been. We had an exceptional team performance. Some players really made a huge contributions with their play and their emotion. Maura Donnellan and Katherine Lindros really stick out in mind. We were down 0-6 in Game 2 after losing Game 1 and Maura served 5 points to get us back in the game. Her smile and effort just lit up the entire gym. Katherine passed nails and had an all- around solid performance.
What we are preparing this week for a big match against DePaul. I am sure that they would love to repay us the favor we gave them when we played them here in September. DePaul is a hot team right now. They are playing well and have a lot of confidence. For preparation, we have matches of DePaul scouted, moving people around on our rotation, and getting the team mentally prepared to compete. It should be a great match and I think a fun one for our team to compete in. Hey, we have no thing lose by putting our best effort out there. It's the effort that makes it so much fun.
