The volleyball team is set to play its first home games starting today, but the team cannot afford to get too comfortable.
With its record at 6-3 after splitting four games last weekend at the Rose-Hulman Invitational, the team is looking to defend its home court and stay aggressive in each of the four games it will play over the next two days. In the losses last weekend against the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (7-3) and Bethany College (11-0), the Tigers were looking to close out the game, but came up short.
"The last three games, they really pulled through and they had a lot of good swings," said sophomore Kelly Doyle of the team's first loss against Bethany. "Our communication dropped on the floor, and we lost a lot of confidence."
In that game, DePauw was up two sets to none when Bethany took the final three to win the match and hand the Tigers their second loss of the season. In their next game, the Tigers easily beat Franklin College 3-0 and readied themselves for their second match of the season against Rose-Hulman.
DePauw was up 2-1 on the Fightin' Engineers but lost the last two sets 25-21 and 16-14.
"We didn't come in as strong as we did the first time," Doyle said. "It was a really aggressive game but we didn't pull through. The last couple points could have gone either way."
Head coach Deb Zellers attributed the Tigers' struggles in both games to the different offense shown by their opponents.
"I would say it was a combination of execution issues, and that affects your mental game," Zellers said. "Both of those teams did a good job attacking from the middle of the floor to the right side. We didn't adjust well to that. It was different than what we have seen from other teams and different in practice."
The two taller middle hitters for Bethany and Rose-Hulman confused the Tigers on defense, who were slow to adjust to the different offensive look. When they continued to struggle against that type of offense, the frustration leaked into other parts of their game.
Zellers hopes that in response to those two losses, her players will stay aggressive and in the correct mindset on every play.
"I think more than anything I'm really hoping the team to come out with an aggressive mindset," Zellers said. "Sometimes there's the tendency to be a little bit tight playing in front of your fans, there are more people you know, the game of volleyball cannot be played well when you're tentative or tight."
The Tigers play Baldwin-Wallace College (8-2) at the Lilly Center at 5:30 p.m. today, before taking on Rose-Hulman fro the third time. On Saturday, DePauw will face Birmingham-Southern College (4-5) at 10 a.m. and Millikin University (8-1) at 2 p.m.
"I want us to play aggressive and confident, and I want us to have some more sharpness," Zellers said. "Our defense, footwork and transitions, all of those things are the glue and base of volleyball. We need to have a mentality that we will be crisp and sharp in all of those aspects of our play. If we do, we will be successful."