The Ball State women's volleyball team is no stranger to playing top-ranked teams in the country, but this season they expanded that to the world.
The Cardinals are on a preseason trip in Brazil, where they will play six games in 10 days.
"The level of competition in Brazil is probably tops in the world," head coach Randy Litchfield said "I'm sure that we're going to get beat, probably more then a few times down there, but that's the kind of environment you get your problems solved in."
With only one player lost to graduation, Litchfield said it was a good year to take this kind of trip because almost everyone on the team is returning.
"I think to start the year off playing exhibition matches and training together and staying together for 10 days will give us a leg up," Litchfield said. "We're getting a little jump start on our preparation, and that's the main idea behind it."
The Cardinals will use that preparation for a tough non-conference schedule, which begins a little over a week after they return from Brazil.
"It's a terrific non-conference schedule," Litchfield said. "I've always liked the schedules that I've done that provide a hand full of matches that I think are closely scrutinized when it comes time to look at at-large bids in the NCAA Tournament."
That's why the Cardinals schedule will feature several non-conferance schools that are in the top 100 RPI. Among them are two teams that are in the top 25 USA Today/CSTV Coaches Preseason Poll. The Cardinals will face the No. 2-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers as well as the No. 19 Illinois Fighting Ilini.
"We're playing key conferences and playing the right teams in those conferences that I think can display just how good the top echelon of the MAC is," Litchfield said. "I want to have accumulated enough wins and some quality wins to where we can go into our conference tournament and know that we have a good shot of going in."
Last season the Cardinals ended with a victory over No. 17 Louisville, and they want to continue beating top ranked teams this season. Junior Sarah Obras said she wants to win some tournaments prior to entering the MAC season.
"I think that's a huge goal to have because I've only won one tournament before, and that was last year at New Hampshire," Obras said. "I think that'd be a big goal for us only because we're playing some really good teams."
The toughest of the tournaments will come when the Cardinals travel to Nebraska to take on the Huskers along with Maryland and Florida A&M, who had RPI's of 17 and 40, respectively, last season.
The team will also travel to Arkansas where they will face Illinois, Houston and Arkansas.
Both of those tournaments will come about the time Litchfield is hoping to have his team playing top volleyball, he said. Litchfield said it is hard to have enough time to get a team ready quickly with the limited amount of time they are allowed to be together but thinks five weeks is enough.
"I don't think we should look at this as any type of rebuilding year," Litchfield said. "I think by five weeks we need to be ready to get after it and go beat some people."
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