Yellowjacket Blog - Devon Crotteau, Volleyball

Oct. 8, 2007
This last week was very up and down for the team.  Last Tuesday we played our cross town rival, Rocky Mountain College. What an amazing atmosphere to play in! The crowd was just as pumped as we were, and we came out on top in four games.

In case you haven’t heard, Saturday was not a good day for MSUB athletics. We traveled to Seattle bright and early to play Seattle University. We fought hard but things just didn’t click for us. We fell behind two games to none before we finally came out on top in the third game. Even though we fought hard, our comeback fell short in the fourth game. It was not the outcome we had hoped for at all.

To top off our great weekend, we spent half of the day Sunday in the Seattle airport (something about our plane’s communication system).

We are looking forward to practicing hard this week and traveling to Western Oregon and Saint Martin’s this weekend for some more conference action. Be sure to check out the video on the internet!
 

Sept. 17, 2007
This past week was pretty eventful for the Yellowjacket volleyball team.
After beating Seattle Pacific on Saturday, we came home and got some much needed R&R. On Monday, the team got together and decorated our bulletin board which, if I do say so myself, looks pretty snazzy. We also decided on some team goals for the season, including staying “disaplined“ in practices. One of the major goals we had was to remain undefeated at home and start our own winning streak like the one we snapped at Seattle Pacific. We got the chance to start on Thursday.

After four weeks on the road, we were excited to finally be able to play in our home gym. We played Saint Martin’s in our home opener, and it wasn’t pretty. After dropping the first game, Coach must have assumed we forgot our goal of remaining undefeated at home so she took us downstairs and sent us on a nice little jog to remind us. We woke up and came out much tougher in the second game. We overcame the sluggish start and a bad joke to win in 4 games.

It wasn’t exactly a win to be proud of, but it was a win nonetheless. We continued our winning streak on Saturday night against Western Oregon, who was 3-0 in conference. We started off energetic and strong and won in 4 games.
There was a solid effort from everyone on the court during the game, and it was a fun game to play. The win put in a four-way tie for first place in the GNAC. We were glad to have such a vocal and energetic crowd! (But there is still plenty of room on the bleachers for more of you!) We would also like to say thanks to the Kruse’s for the pre-game snacks!

In other news, Taylor turned twenty-one on Thursday. Instead of celebrating her “twentyoneness” after our game, Hillary and I had the team over at our house on Friday for some birthday cake, some game shows, and a few episodes of “The Office.” It wasn’t anything too exciting, but it was still a good time.

This Wednesday we are setting out on a journey to Alaska, where we will play in Fairbanks and Anchorage. You can catch the games on the web if you are having withdrawals. If not, be sure to check out Jill’s blog next week.
 

Aug. 27, 2007
Hello, everyone! 

Last week was pretty eventful for the volleyball team.  We were all ready to get out of Billings and play our first official match of the season.  We traveled to Omaha, Nebraska, for our first tournament of the year at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.  Jay was kind enough to take us all on a campus tour as he drove us around trying to find the field house. 

This was our first chance to really get to play with each other in a faster-paced match, and it gave us a great opportunity to build some team chemistry on the court.  We played well overall, going 2-2, but like always there is room for improvement.

Coach scored us tickets to the AVCA Volleyball Showcase on Saturday night after our final match.  I think we were all pretty excited to see some of the top teams in DI volleyball play, and we weren't the only ones.  There was a record crowd that night, over 11,000 people at the Quest Center, to watch Tennessee play Utah followed by the championship match of Nebraska and UCLA.  It was insane!  If you happened to catch the matches on TV, you might have seen us.  We were pretty much the only people in the entire arena wearing blue.  After watching first-ranked Nebraska play, it was easy to see how every single one of their matches could sell out with ease.  I'm sure that we will have similar crowds this season in the gym at MSUB!

Unfortunately, we had to leave the match early so we could catch some z's before our 6 o'clock flight in the morning.  After two uncomfortable flights, we made it back to Billings and are set to get back to work in the gym to prepare for another tournament next weekend in Colorado.