After practice Wednesday, volleyball coach Denise Van De Walle offered her team some type of reward if they win this weekend.
‘Coach was just telling us we will get some rewards if we win,’ Corey Domek said with a laugh. ‘I’m not sure what they are, but we’re really pushing. They would be some really good wins for our RPI at the end of the season.’
Today, the Falcons (7-3) will travel to The Ohio State University to take on tough opponents Cleveland State, Ohio State and Xavier at St. John’s Arena in the Ohio State Sports Imports Classic.
Van De Walle has not been to St. John’s Arena in several years, but has a feeling the crowd could become an impact.
‘I would assume it will be a nice crowd,’ she said. ‘We will play in front of a couple thousand ‘hellip; at least a thousand.’
Entering the tournament, Cleveland State (9-2) is off to a great start. They are holding their opponents to a .123 attacking percentage, while hitting .255.
Ohio State (9-1) is entering the tournament on a five-match winning streak. They have not played any common opponents to BG, but they did beat Western Michigan earlier in the season.
OSU is averaging 1.84 aces per set and one of their top players, Katie Dull, is leading the team with 3.94 kills per set.
After starting the season off at 1-5, Xavier has played well as of late. Now at 5-5, they mean business. The team has blocked well this season as three players have at least 24 blocks.
Though the Falcons are facing adversity this weekend, Allison Kearney thinks it’s all about confidence when playing a Big Ten school.
‘I think if we play with confidence and determination, we’ll be able to bounce back,’ she said. ‘We had a good talk after our losses this weekend and I think if we put that determination and frustration in, which we did in practice, we will be OK.’
Like Kearney, Domek, too is happy with how practice has been looking.
‘We have been working a lot on performance,’ Domek said. ‘We really put a huge emphasis on court personality and just being hard competitors and being aggressive on the floor. If we are better at that, then the performance will come.’