University of Nevada Athletics

 

Final Blog for the 2009 Season

Wow, what a year.  We went from only winning one match in each of the first four weekends to finishing in the top 4 in the conference.  The highlight of the year had to be "Senior" Day.  And it truly was an entire day.  We started off the Saturday of our last home match with our team banquet in the morning where in attendance were all of our players and staff, as well as all of the parents of our three seniors.  It was a great brunch at Hacienda where we honored our team's achievements for the year, watched a great highlight film, and distributed player jersey frames to each of the seniors, Jorgan, Lauren, and Sonnie.

Following the banquet, many of the players stopped by Mackay Stadium to watch our football team dismantle Fresno State.  Then it was on to our match where we played the best match of the year on Senior night by beating La Tech easily in three straight sets.  It was quite an accomplishment after losing to this team earlier in the year.  The .543 hitting percentage was definitely a record for the year.  The day wasn't over.  Following our match, it was on to the men's basketball game where our hoops team handled Montana St.  

Although we ended the year with a loss to Fresno State in a close five set match at the WAC tournament, this team learned a lot through the ups and downs of the season that will help make them that much better for the future.  Although I am looking forward to the new year, I am very thankful to our seniors and all that they have done for this program during their careers.  

Devin Scruggs Head Coach

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Thursday, Nov. 19

This past week has been wonderful. I couldn't have asked for a better senior night for Jorgan, Sonnie, and myself. It was a perfect way to end our careers at the Virginia Street Gym The gym was packed with friends and family, who cheered us to a dominating victory. Things aren't over just yet, we have a few more matches to end our season better than predicted. Our preseason ranking of 6th is history and now we get a chance to show that we deserve to be where we are.

Lauren Kelly (Senior, Reno)

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Tuesday, Nov. 10

We had a great roadtrip this weekend.  Long, but was very much needed. Even with all the driving and waiting around, we beat San Jose and Fresno.  We got two wins in a row on the road and this was a roadtrip where we hadn't gone 2-0 in a very long time.  We beat Fresno in the tie breaker for the standings in the WAC, which only gets us closer to Vegas!

Kylie Harrington (Junior, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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 Wednesday, Nov. 4

Happy Halloween! After a decisive victory over San Jose and a positive display against Hawaii, it's no trick as to what is yet to come during our three matches this week! We have UNLV on thurs...be there!

Nicole Link (Junior, Elk Grove, Calif.)

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Wednesday, Oct. 28

We hosted our first tournament this weekend.  We finally got to play someone besides ourselves!  We rose to the challenge by beating a very talented UConn team and competed well against the UC Irvine.  What's more, we hit over .300 as team for the weekend and had one of our own, Lindsay, named to the All-Tournament team.  We are definately playing well together and know that we are only going to get better!

Jorgan Staker (Senior, Taylorsville, Utah)

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Tuesday, Oct. 13

Hawaii was a blasts especially because it's my hometown.  Playing in front of thousands of family and friends, enjoying the sunshine, and the great acai bowls was an awesome way to spend a weekend.  Our girls played the best we've ever had in Hawaii. Chee ya boy

Tatiana Santiago (Sophomore, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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Monday, Oct. 5

We had a tough roadtrip this last week.  Two players got sick and we even had to send one home.  After these two losses, we learned a lot, including the fact that we need to work harder as volleyball players on the road.  We have another tough (but fun) roadtrip ahead of us at Hawaii and then it's back to the Virginia Street Gym for a home match against Utah State!

Kylie Harrington (Junior, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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Tuesday, Aug. 29

Janelle Batista (Freshman, Corvallis, Ore.)

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Wednesday, Sept. 23

The drive over to stockton was HORRIBLE! being from hawaii, i have never been in a car that long...hello? it only takes like a hour to get around the island! haha... we rode in the sprinter van, which was like a thousand degrees, and listened to some aladdin jams.  the hilton was nice--Mike did a nice job with getting us AMAZING meals. olive garden, some bomb food from the hotel and marie calenders is what we feasted on. but no pie for the nevada volleyball team :( We went 1-2 at the Pacific tournament. Our win featured our specialty--winning in five games. We also got to see Ray Bat which was a nice reunion for everyone, and elissa, tati and I got to see some of our former teammates!  Although the outcome was not what we wanted, we learned some new things like how to be patient when teams keep digging up our hits, Garvey perfected her tiger snarl, which was like a cats meow when we first got there, and I learned what it was like to play front row! 

Kelly Chang (Freshman, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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Wednesday, Sept. 15

Focus is at an all time high, tough loss this weekend to UC Davis but no sense dwelling on it...we will be back and take the WAC by storm.

Lindsay Baldwin (Junior, Hillsborough, Calif.)

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Thursday, Sept. 10

This weekend was a learning experience for the team! Vance learned not to wear high heels that give you blisters instead buy house slippers from the airport news stand! We also learned from our losses to Arizona and emu to pull through with a win against Houston!


Erin Garvey (Sophomore, Argyle, Texas)

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We hosted our first tournament this weekend.  We finally got to play someone besides ourselves!  We rose to the challenge by beating a very talented UConn team and competed well against the UC Irvine.  What's more, we hit over .300 as team for the weekend and had one of our own, Lindsay, named to the All-Tournament team.  We are definately playing well together and know that we are only going to get better!

Jorgan Staker (Senior, Taylorsville, Utah)

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Today we headed back home. It was a fun weekend at Lake Almanor but we had other priorities to attend to such as our BLUE and SILVER Scrimage. Nate's van, which I was in, rocked out to Michael Jackon's number one hits. DIRTY DIANA, THRILLER, MAN IN THE MIRROR, and BEAT IT were just a few that got the van rockin.
The scrimage went well and my team, the BLUE team, won! I can see how the hard work from Fall Camp is paying off and that we are ready for our season to begin!!

Jessica Daum (Junior, Fallon, Nevada)

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We were at Lake Almanor all day today...it was great. water and weather was perfect. Swam, tanned, jet skied, tubed, wake boarded (or attempted to at least...who knew Lo and Janelle were so pro??), ate, and hung out with each other. BBQ dinner was good. Bats interfered our meeting. Later, thought up new names for colleges, looked at stars, saw a couple of shooting stars, took a little hike, ran through some sprinklers and watched Casper the Friendly Ghost. 

DISNEY movies are epic...and so was this trip.

Kelly Chang (Freshman, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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This morning the team had to sprint 100 yards 8 times because one of our teammates had a misunderstanding with our practice schedule and was 8 minutes late.  It wasn't too bad, not as bad as everyone expected it to be or at least what I expected.  After that we had some fun with the bleachers (ran and jumped up and down the stairs for conditioning...).  The new thing today is after weight lifting we get a little carton of CHOCOLATE MILK! (which was heaven after lifting...).  Team practice was slow today.  Everyone was tired and sore from yesterday, but NO EXCUSES! The good thing is, we have the entire afternoon OFF!!!! The team takes pictures today so we are going to get all pretty.  :)

Elissa Ji (Freshman, Honolulu, Hawaii)

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I was eight minutes late to practice today, so we have eight 100 yard sprints tomorrow at 7am. I feel pretty bad about that. At the beginning of our 9:30am practice, Devin was telling us how we should not take our workout clothes home and that we need to put them in the barrel to get washed.   She went over how we first put them in the barrel and then once our clothes are washed, our clean clothes will be in our cubbies.   Lindsey Baldwin then realized and announced that she had not been putting her clothes in the barrel, but in the cubbies. Her clothes we not getting washed. The team had a good laugh, and practice began.

Janelle Batista (Freshman, Corvallis, Ore.)

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Saturday we split the team up into two evenly matched groups for a full "in uniform" scrimmage.  I was originally concerned the teams were not evenly matched, but in the end, my side won 18-16 in the 5th.  I guess I did a good job of making the teams even.  The girls had the rest of the weekend off after going six straight days in a row double days, conditioning and lifting.  I spent my day and a half off by hanging out with some friends at Kings Beach, paddle boarding at Donner Lake and going to my first Aces game.

Head Coach Devin Scruggs

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Nicole Link (Junior, Elk Grove, Calif.)

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