St. Louis Here We Come

I still haven't caught my breath. It still hasn't hit me yet. But whether I'm ready for it or not SCVB is going to St. Louis as one of the final eight Division III teams left in America still playing volleyball. We are the NCAA Regional Champions and we've accomplished almost all of our goals...that is except for one. We want a National Championship.

This weekend was like a dream. Hosting NCAA Regionals on our campus, in our gym, with our fans. We got revenge to two teams that we've been dying to play all season. It started with Tufts. They had beaten us earlier in the season and we knew if we saw them again it would be a tough match. They played hard and put up a real good fight. However, in four games we found ourselves going to the Regional Championship against UMass-Boston, abd in the same situation we were in exactly a year ago. For the returning players on our team we knew what this meant, and for all our first-year players they understood how badly we wanted to beat them. They had beaten us last year in title game in five games and this year we decided it was our turn.

I'll give you four words to describe why we won that game. Teamwork, Believe, and Tessa Smolinski. Our team was on fire, there was no stopping our momentum, and even though there were some moments that gave us a scare, we fought through our fear. The difference between last year and this year was that this year we truly believed we could win that game and go to the Elite 8. EVERYONE on our team showed up to play, and I mean everyone. There was not one person on our team that had a look of fear in their eyes and we knew we were ready. Tessa probably had the best game of her life and it could not have come at a more fantastic moment.

We were down 22-20 in the fourth game, and when Coach took a timeout, I think we all decided that this game wasn't going to five and we were going to end it right then and there. We came out of the timeout on fire. We rallied and pushed and fought our way to 22-22. With Meaghan Hart (one of our most consistent servers) on the service line and Tessa and I in the front row, it was time to finish the game. Tessa put down a tricky ball to make it 23-22, then I blocked their middle to make it 24-22. It was then that we all knew. A hitting error on Umass Boston gave us the title and the emotion I felt at that moment was not comparable to anything else I've ever felt. It was like winning the NEWMAC Championship on steroids.

With all of our emotion and confidence we head off to St. Louis on Wednesday morning to face Carthage in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship. We do believe we could win big this weekend and we are ready for whatever comes our way. IT'S NOT OVER.

I LOVE THIS TEAM.