In nature, a hawk would probably destroy a cardinal. On avolleyball court Tuesday night, the Cardinals of the Ball Statewomen's volleyball team looked nature straight in the eye and said"not this time" as they dismantled the RedHawks of Miami in threegames.
The victory could not have come at a better time for Ball State(8-10, 3-3 Mid-American Conference), which had lostthree-consecutive matches before coming against Miami (7-15, 1-6MAC).
"I really thought this was a must-win match," head coach RandyLitchfield said. "There is no way you can start the conference 2-4,and there is no way you can lose four in a row and have any kind ofdecent morale. Maybe even more important is that we did not need tomuddle through another five-game match, win or lose."
In recent weeks, Litchfield has tried to integrate new offensivesets into the Cardinals' game plan, but the results were notremarkably successful.
For the Miami match, he tried a different technique.
"We didn't do any amazing things in practice," he said. "Thiswas just the team coming in and doing it."
Redshirt, sophomore middle attacker Melissa Oliver turned in aborderline-amazing performance, despite having the flu.
"She's an old Chicago Bulls fan, so she probably remembersMichael Jordan in the playoffs with the flu," Litchfield said. "Shehad an absolutely enormous match while feeling absolutely horrible.Sometimes you are capable of big things when you put your mind toit."
Oliver registered 10 kills and three block assists while hitting.450 on the night, despite vomiting between games.
"I just wanted to play," Oliver said. "I came in thinking that Iwas going to play, and if it didn't work out, then it didn't workout."
Sophomore Sarah Obras also had a big night for the Cards. The5-foot-10-inch outside attacker tallied 19 kills in the three gamesfor a robust 6.33 kills-per-game average.
She said she was happy with her play, but she said she was moresatisfied with the combined play of the team as a whole.
"We were a new team coming into it tonight," Obras said. "Youcould probably consider this match one of the most importantmatches of our season."
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