Hello DUVB supporters!
The team just arrived back in Denver this morning after spending the weekend in Tempe, Ariz. where Arizona State University was hosting the Sheraton Classic - our first preseason tournament of the year. The weekend had special significance for me because my hometown is the nearby city of Chandler, and I grew up watching the ASU volleyball team play in their large arena. It was pretty neat to be traveling back there with my DU team to compete in that same arena.
When we first arrived on Thursday, we held a practice in the arena so we could adjust to the size and the lighting of the place - it's interesting how a different venue can temporarily affect your depth perception of the ball. Then, we drove to my house for a team dinner. The whole team was full of energy, so my house was filled with hysterical laughter for most of the night. I think everyone would agree a highlight was playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii in my basement - we caught a lot of it on film, which could possibly be used for future blackmailing purposes.... We even convinced our assistant coach Taylor and our trainer Chelsea to have a dance-off, and let's just say Chelsea won :D After dinner, dessert, and entertainment, half of us spent the ride back to our hotel singing Disney songs by heart while the other half cringed, and Fai even treated us to a beat-boxing performance. This is just a glimpse of our fantastic team personalities : )
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On Friday night, we had our match against PAC-12 Conference member Arizona State. Despite being the visiting team, we had a great showing of fans, including many sets of team parents, other family members, and also tons of friends of mine from Arizona. (Shout out to all of you who came to the match, thank you SO MUCH for your support!) After dropping the first two sets, we stayed neck in neck with the Sun Devils until the end of the third. Freshman Sammy Berger even served several balls to keep us in the game while ASU had match point - talk about pressure - until we fell at 23-25.
On Saturday morning we faced San Jose State, a team we will be joining in the Western Athletic Conference next year, and beat the Spartans in 4 sets! That night for our last match, we played the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which has several former teammates of freshmen Kate Acker and Frances Carroll. It was a tightly contested match, with the Pios and Panthers alternating wins until UW finally clinched the fifth set with a score of 15-13. Junior middle Faimie Kingsley was selected for the All-Tournament Team for her performance over the weekend - congrats Fai! Overall, there was some great volleyball played, and we had the opportunity to see where we're at as a team heading into our first weekend of home competition. It's looking good, so be sure to come out and watch - we play Air Force at home this Thursday at 7pm!
Thanks for reading - Go Pios!
Cassie Ronda
