PHOTO COURTESY OF BARRY BURTENSHAW
This weekend the Tiger’s were able to show up and play like the team they know they can be—defeating Oberlin 3-0 (25-13, 25-17, 25-10). It was the team’s second conference win of the first three conference games.
The Tigers have started to worry about their eligibility in the NCAA tournament—they earned an at-large bid last year, something that seems to be out of the question this season due to their slow start.
Head coach Deb Zellers said of the season so far: “Our team has done okay, but not to the level of the expectation that we have for ourselves in our program.”
She offered some insight into this years team’s slow start. “This season, it feels like we’ve been in a journey because we’ve had a lot of adversity at the start of the season with injuries. We have 17 people on our roster, but many times we’ve had 10 or 11 in practice,” said Zellers.
In regards to the Oberlin game, which showed tremendous promise for the Tigers, junior Elisabeth Wilson had nine kills out of the twelve members of the team that recorded kills in the game. Faith Rolwes had 24 assists on the day and Keely McGrath, who recently broke the DePauw record for career digs, had 19 in the game.
“The game this weekend was really fun,” said Wilson. “We were able to come together as a team and beat Oberlin. All year we have been focused on getting a lead and maintaining it and I think yesterday we finally accomplished our goal.”
At home, the Tigers feel that momentum swings to their side.
“I feel a change of energy [at home games],” said junior Rachel Lenderman. “Since we only have a few home games we really try to show our family and classmates what we have been working towards everyday in the gym. It also creates really fun energy to transform our practice space in to a competition arena.”
The Tigers will continue to fight for NCAA contention for a third year straight on Oct. 10, when they travel to Millikin, to play both the host and North Park.
The biggest key for continuing the wins? According to Wilson, it lies with the team’s attitude.
“We just need to keep supporting each other. Our biggest strength as a team is how close we are and if we are able to keep merging that onto the court we will be successful,” said Wilson.