Senior outside hitter Lauren Falotico had 11 kills in DePauw volleyball’s win against Rose-Hulman Tuesday night in their first home game since Sept. 1. This week, The DePauw had the opportunity to sit down with Falotico and hear her outlook on the season and how important the home win was for the team.
The DePauw (TDP): You have been on the road for the past two weekends playing in tournaments. Can you describe what it’s like to come back to your home gymnasium and have a big win like that?
Lauren Falotico (LF): This season, we only have five home games. We’ve already had two of those five, and it’s just so fun valuing that time because there are only so many [home games] this season. When we’re at our home gym, it’s just a blast. Everyone’s there and really excited, and all of our friends throughout the whole day are telling us they’re going to come support us because we’re home finally. It’s fun too just because we like to defend home court. It gives us a little extra kick in the butt to get fired up for the game. It’s just fun because it gives us that extra pride of, “hey, we can’t let them beat us on our home court.”
TDP: Do you think this win was a season changer in terms of momentum?
LF: Definitely. Winning three games [against Rose-Hulman] definitely shifted our momentum and gave us that extra confidence going into this weekend where we’re going to be traveling a lot. Sometimes when you’re on the road for eight-plus hours, it can slow you down. But I think coming off a three-game win will give us that extra energy to say, “hey, we’re doing really, really well, let’s keep it going,” so I definitely agree that, even though we’ve had a little bit of a roller coaster of a season, this is going to help us get to that place where we really want to be at the end of the season.
TDP: Going off of what you said about it being, thus far, a roller coaster of a season, how has the team had to handle that after putting up big numbers in the previous seasons?
LF: The good thing is it’s early in the season. That’s what we keep saying to each other. The best teams usually go through some kind of adversity or tough point throughout the season. They become the best teams because they’re able to fight through that. Even though our record is maybe not where we want it to be at right now, I think that there are a lot of games to be played yet, and we’re seeing a lot of really good teams in these next few weeks that if we’re able to compete with them and play at our highest level, we’ll still have a really, really successful season.
TDP: As a senior, how are you seeing this season? Obviously it’s your last one, but what do you feel?
LF: Well I think that this being senior year, the most important thing is just that I’ve created such close bonds with my other senior teammates, we’re just doing it for each other. We’re deciding that, you know, this is our last season to be together, come together, and just have a lot of fun. So to get through this roller coaster we’re just saying, “hey, we have to come together and make this what we want it to be.” I think also since we have a heavy senior group on our team [four in the starting lineup] it also gives us a lot of experience that, when we are down in games or when we do have losses that are unexpected, we’re able to say, “okay, that happened, let’s bounce back and not get too freaked out.” I’m really excited about this season. We’ve had rough starts in past seasons, and being seniors, I think it’ll give us an advantage that, mentally, we’re prepared to fight back and give it all we have for our last year at DePauw.