Nov. 1, 2007

FAIRFAX, Va. - I am very proud to report we are on a four game winning streak since my last entry advancing us to a 7-3 record in conference and pushing us into second place!

But none of our wins have come easily. Perhaps our most challenging match of the last two weeks was against William and Mary, who at the time was at the top of the conference. With huge support from our amazing fans we were able to pull out the win after five grueling sets. The weekend offered a number of challenges. Certainly we were all very motivated to better our consistency after our crushing loss to JMU. One way the coaches felt we could improve was in our backcourt defensive effort. After some frustration in trying to learn a rather different position in only a few short practices we were ready to face W&M and VCU. Obviously our hard work paid off as we were able to pick up two solid wins on the weekend.

After a short week of practice it was time to fly down south to take on UNC Wilmington and Georgia State. We were able to play very consistently to secure our second place position in the conference (record wise we are tied with Northeastern, but in the head to head we beat them earlier in the month).

Interestingly, the volleyball seemed to fade away in light of travel complications. Sunday morning we woke up to a 9 a.m. wakeup call ready to play Georgia State. By four o'clock that afternoon we were celebrating our win and ready to head to the airport to fly home. After realizing the restaurant we wished to eat at had moved locations to some rather cryptic location we opted to eat dinner at the airport. Starving we scarfed our food at our gate waiting to leave Atlanta for a brief layover in Charlotte, NC. Unfortunately, our plane was about 30 minutes late, which meant we would be cutting our connection extremely close. We remained optimistic as we waited for what seemed like an eternity on the runway for take off. Rejoiced to hit the Charlotte tarmac with about 15 minutes to spare all our hopes of catching our flight slowly dwindled as no gates or grounds crews became available. Finally we deplaned and sprinted to our connecting gate only to find it completely empty. Because it was now after 10pm we realized we were going to spend the night in Charlotte.

Thankfully, we were able to catch a 6 a.m. flight the next morning (giving most people time to at least make their 9 a.m. classes Monday morning). With only our carry-on luggage we fell into our hotel at about midnight. Those who slept were awoken to a very harsh 3:30 a.m. wakeup call as we headed back to the airport. Of course we waited yet again as our plane was delayed but finally we made to back to campus at exactly 9am Monday morning.

Needless to say it was an eventful weekend, but we were extremely excited to extend a four-game winning streak and are very excited to make it six over this upcoming weekend. Saturday night is a particularly big night at we take on first-place Delaware. I know how much we have improved since we last played them and I can say that I am very excited to try and claim first place in the CAA!!!