Midseason offers opportunity to assess goals
Volley Frogs taking time to reflect on past and react for
future
By Colleen Casey
Skiff Staff
More than halfway through the season, the TCU volleyball team now has the opportunity to assess its success in accomplishing the goals agreed upon before the season began.
Head coach Sandy Troudt said she believes the next three weeks are crucial in determining how the Frogs will feel at the end of the season.
“We just put the toughest road stretch we’ll have this season behind us,” she said. “We have seven games left in October and we plan to take them on one by one.”
This baby-step method is one that assistant coach Chris Rudiger said is the most productive means to
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Hillary Morgan/SKIFF STAFF
Senior place kicker Chris Kaylakie kicks a 39-yard field goal in the Frogs’ 52-3 win over Arkansas State Sept. 23. Kaylakie has hit six of seven field goals this season. TCU is 5-0 and ranked No. 12 by The Associated Press. |
achieve the goals of the team.
“We certainly aren’t there yet, and I don’t think anybody is completely satisfied,” Rudiger said. “We still have much more to get through, and we’ll do this by focusing on all the little things.”
Troudt said the current team has put together the best season of volleyball played in TCU’s history.
“The team knows how strong we’ve been, even though we haven’t won as many matches at this point as we had hoped,” she said.
Troudt said a team that doesn’t win often isn’t going to receive recognition, but she feels better about the team challenging themselves when playing better competition.
“We could have put easier teams on our schedule,” she said. “I think it’s better to play tougher teams because you get better, even by losing to them.”
Troudt said playing a team with better technique, like Hawaii, will prepare them for next season, when the Frogs move from the Western Athletic Conference to Conference USA.
Sophomore Stephanie Watson said the Frogs have never determined a team’s importance to their schedule based on which conference they play in.
“We don’t take any team any different from another,” Watson said. “Not discriminating against teams lets us just focus on playing our game and stay consistent to our progress.
“Even though we lost recently, we’re still coming off a good weekend. It just has really pumped us up to take on more tougher opponents.”
Among some of the positive highlights Troudt said she has seen is an increased number of digs produced, with 1,104 so far this season. She said she is also pleased with TCU’s No. 19 ranking in blocks with 214.5 blocks.
Additionally, Troudt said she has seen the benefits of each player drawing energy from another.
“We all feed off the environment that we’re in,” she said. “Because we draw certain characteristics from each other, it’s obvious we start possessing the same qualities.”
Colleen Casey
c.m.casey@student.tcu.edu.