Mental toughness is often hard for a team to define. For many coaches, it is a constant struggle to maintain and equally complicated to explain.
For the Tiger volleyball team, it is the one speed bump in the road to winning consistently.
After a frustrating 3-2 loss Friday night against Kenyon College (10-12, 4-4 NCAC), the Tigers (15-7, 6-2 NCAC) sought to avenge the disappointing loss with a win over the only winless NCAC team, Oberlin College (0-18, 0-7 NCAC). DePauw rebounded nicely, winning in straight games 3-0. However, Head Coach Deb Zellers is looking for answers to her team's loss to Kenyon.
"The Kenyon match was an extremely frustrating match, one that we thought we should have won," Zellers said. "We just didn't play well. We just struggle this season both individually and as a team to bounce back from a slow start."
The match was delayed because one of the officials showed up late. This meant more pre-game warm ups for the teams, but Zellers thought the extra time affected her team in a negative way.
"That happened for both teams, but for us I noticed in the five minutes of extra play, it was almost as if we already started in that tight mode," Zellers said. "I noticed from the get-go that we were very inside of ourselves and making a lot of unforced errors."
Once the first game started, the Tigers were down early 5-7, then after evening the score at 13, Kenyon established a lead and won the game 25-23. "A few players came out not playing their ‘A' game," Zellers said. "But this is what happens in sports, you don't have your best game every game. But we have to learn that even if we are not having our best game, we can still dig our way out of it."
DePauw was able to keep the game close, winning the second and fourth games, but were unable to fix their on-court mentality in the fifth and final game. Because of errors on their side of the court, the Tigers were down 3-10 and looking for answers to why they cannot perform at their highest level at all times.
"I'm struggling to find that answer as a coach," Zellers said. "I see it unfolding and I keep talking to the team about what happens, we need to communicate more and have players step up, but the learning process hasn't happened to the extent that it needs to yet."
According to freshman Alex Messner, one of the reasons why the team came out in the incorrect mentality might have been overconfidence after previously beating Kenyon in straight games 3-0.
"We beat them before in three straight games, so I think we came out just a bit too confident," Messner said. "We just started to panic a little bit and we got down. We have to not take any team for granted and always go out strong and play our best."
Against winless Oberlin the next day, the Tigers were able to gain back some of that confidence and show how a strong mentality can result in a positive result.
"I was happy that we focused on our side of the court and focused on the small technical things better," Zellers said of the match against Oberlin. "We didn't really drop our level of play. We were able to get every player some playing time, so that's always good when you can do that."
Next up for the Tigers are four games against NCAC opponents next weekend at the College of Wooster. DePauw is tied for second in the conference with Hiram College with conference records of 6-0. The leader is Wittenberg University (19-2) at a perfect 8-0.