Volleyball team confident entering Butler Tournament Friday, Saturday
Confidence is high going into the weekend for the Central Michigan volleyball team.
The Chippewas (2-3) travel to Indianapolis, Ind. for the Butler Tournament at 2:30 Friday against Austin Peay (2-5). Following is a two-game double header at 11 a.m. on Saturday against Elon and at 6 p.m. that evening against host Butler.
“I want to see my studs be studs, my role players do what they do and I want to see do what I know we can do,” said head coach Erik Olson. “I expect to win and for our program to establish their will this weekend.”
The (Austin Peay) Governors are no push over. They have played a tough schedule thus far based, playing against No. 35 Missouri and Auburn who made it to the second round of the tournament last season.
“Austin Peay has played a fairly tough schedule, their record isn’t great, but they’re pretty good,” Olson said. “They just haven’t put the nail in the coffin yet.”
The team will have junior right side hitter Jocelyn VerVelde this weekend, who is eligiable to play. She has been in and out for awhile, one part because of the underclassmen play.
“She’s a full go and now I have to figure out if she has had enough practice to make a difference,” Olson said. “(Val) DeWeerd has been doing pretty good and has been really good off (Kelly) Maxwell where VerVelde has been good with (Catherine) Ludwig so it depends on our setters.”
Just as one recovers, another goes down.
Senior middle blocker Kaitlyn Schultz sat out of practice all week, but is expected to play.
“I just strained a muscle in my calf and it’s a lot better today than it was the beginning of the week,” Schultz said. “It’s just a minor injury from last weekend.”
With Schultz feeling good and VerVelde returning to the lineup, along with the underclassmen gaining experience, there is no reason why CMU shouldn’t be excited for this weekend.
“We need to take it one play at a time, communicate, over-exaggerate things and just play together,” Schultz said. “I expect to go 3-0 and that should the expectation for everybody.”
This is the first time the Chippewas will not have to play the host team in game one of the tournament.
“That has been the case and it’s been the home opener for both of them and I do think that is a dynamic that stinks for us,” Olson said.
In those previous games CMU has came out slow. Olson and his staff have been working hard to prevent that from happening again.
“We need to be a little more disciplined,” Olson said. “We have had a lot of stopping in practice lately, pointing out six or seven things that are the difference between winning and losing.”
