Volleyball to play first home game of season Friday
The Central Michigan University women's volleyball team celebrates after a victory at McGuirk Arena on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015.
For the past four weeks, the Central Michigan volleyball team has been living out of suitcases, competing in pre-season tournaments and its first two Mid-American Conference matchups all on the road.
The traveling will be put on hold this weekend as the Chippewas square off against Northern Illinois Friday at 7 p.m., and Western Michigan Sunday at 3 p.m. for their first home matches of the season at McGuirk Arena.
“(We’re) definitely really excited to play in front of our home crowd and be able to breathe in our own houses and not hotel rooms,” junior outside hitter Jordan Bueter said.
Last weekend, CMU (6-8, 0-2 MAC) dropped its first conference matches, 3-2 against Ball State and 3-0 at Toledo.
Though he said he was happy with the “fight and resiliency” his team showed against the Cardinals last Friday, head coach Mike Gawlik said the Chippewas played “flat and rushed” in their straight-set loss to the Rockets.
“We put ourselves in a little bit of a hole going down 0-2,” Gawlik said. “We’ve had some great practices since we’ve been home and sometimes when you get your butt kicked, it kicks you into a new gear and I’m hoping that’s what it’ll turn into for us.”
The Huskies (10-4, 2-0 MAC) won both their matches 3-1 last weekend against the WMU and Bowling Green. NIU’s middle blockers Meg Wolowicz and Lauren Zielinksi were named the MAC’s West Divison Players of the Week Monday in both offensive and defensive honors.
Junior outside hitter Jessica Meichtry said the team is looking to bounce back this weekend by focusing on the value of every point.
“We’re just focused on working hard for every single ball,” she said. “We really learned the value of a point or a couple points over the weekend and that’s something we really want to stress in our gym, just the value of one ball.”
