NCAA Tournament the next step in long road for Tech volleyball team
Story by Thomas Corhern, Cookeville Herald-Citizen
DAYTON, Ohio - As Tennessee Tech prepares for this afternoon's NCAA
Tournament opener against Tulane at the University of Dayton, it's
hard to overlook just what kind of turnaround the Golden Eagles
have truly made.
Just four seasons ago, Tech was near the bottom of the Ohio Valley
Conference standings. Then, it was barely missing the OVC
tournament.
Now, the Golden Eagles are sitting at the top of the OVC, claiming
both the regular-season championship ? their first since 1986 ? and
OVC tournament championship ? the first since 1997.
"It's been a slow, steady progression," said Tech coach John Blair.
"It starts with getting quality student-athletes into the program
and more of them. That's what we've had. We've had good balance,
some depth at positions that we didn't have the first couple of
seasons, so it's been a little more competitive.
"Certainly, we've had some ups and downs in that we've lost a few
players along the way ? for what I think were the right reasons ?
and we were fortunate that we had depth and flexibility and really
didn't lose any ground per se because of that. I think this is a
culmination of early years of evaluation of talent and persistent
recruiting."
SENIOR CLASS
A lot of the successs has come from this season's senior class.
They saw a 7-22 record during their freshman campaign, but the
class has continually stepped up their games, determined to bring
the Golden Eagles back to the peak of the OVC.
"I think a lot of that comes from when you get to play all the
time," Blair said. "That's a good learning experience. Caitlin
(Bullock) and Jessica (Asplund) have probably been the two
workhorses of the conference. I don't think there's any team that's
had the same middles for the last four years, virtually for every
single match. We've been kind of fortunate that they've held up
their end of the bargain ? taken care of themselves and done the
kind of things that needed to be done to play.
"Kappy (Lang) came in after winning a national championship on the
high school level. So we knew she had a lot to offer when she got
here. Once she figured out the speed of the college game and how to
interact, she took a big leadership role and I was able to give her
a lot of flexibility and freedom to make choices on the court."
QUICK TURNAROUND
There's no question that the turnaround to prepare for this
tournament was hectic.
True, the OVC Tournament was two weeks ago, but Tech was at
Louisville last Saturday, had the selection show on Sunday,
practiced Monday though Wednesday, then bussed over to Dayton on
Thursday. Now, they play tonight ? the culmination of a solid week
of preparation.
"It's just been a whirlwind," Blair said. "It seems like a year ago
since we played the OVC Tournament. It's barely been two weeks. It
just goes so fast. I think the difficult thing has been making that
mind switch from the OVC to a Big East challenge match to
international players who are heading to Europe to play
professionally. I hope that's going to take us right where we want
to be."
Some of the past teams who have been able to make it to the
tournament in the last five or six years have all been spring
sports where classes at Tech have already been out of session.
That wasn't the case with the volleyball team, with finals about to
begin next week ? or already started for some Tech students.
Bullock, a senior middle blocker, had to ride up with the Tech
media personnel instead of with the team early Thursday because of
an exam that could not be rescheduled.
So that's just been one additional obstacle the team has had to
overcome because of the timing of the tournament.
"It's really condensed things," Blair said. "These guys have had to
work very hard to ready to go. That only happens if they are able
to take care of business on the front end. We stress 'keep up with
things, don't get behind. If anything, get ahead.' The schedule
played to our favor in October. The only real road trip was Austin
Peay and Tennessee State so we never even left the borders. That
helped us a lot because we were able to stay ahead academically.
That allowed us to relax and stay focused on playing when we needed
to play."
HOME COURT ADVANTAGE?
The Golden Eagles may be playing in Dayton, Ohio, but that's not
going to keep Tech from having a little bit of a home field
advantage going into tonight's match.
Tech has five players from nearby Indiana, one from Kentucky and
one from Illinois ? much closer distances for the Golden Eagle
parents than traveling to Cookeville for a home match.
It's also a little more convenient than it is for the Tulane Green
Wave, who has two Serbians, two Croatians and a Puerto Rican in
addition to a trio from Louisiana and a player from North Carolina
being the closest to the NCAA site.
"This will be the second closest match we've played to where the
majority of our team is from," Blair said. "We're going to have
some family there."
ODDS AGAINST TECH?
Since the OVC started receiving an automatic bid to the tournament
in 1994, the conference has only yielded one victory in the NCAA
tournament ? Southeast Missouri in 2000 who upset North Carolina
3-2 in Gainesville, Fla.
The Golden Eagles' lone appearance in the tournament field prior to
tonight was a 3-0 sweep against Colorado in Boulder.
