Leadership comes in all forms.
From senior contributions to freshmen stepping up, the Cardinals are searching for a leader. There will be plenty of opportunities for leaders to emerge as the women's volleyball team hits the road going to Western Kentucky University for the 'Lady-Topper Invitational.'
"I feel like we're five points a game better now than we were a week and a half ago," head coach Randy Litchfield said. "That's all we're looking for is improvement."
The Cardinals are now approaching the midway point of their season, and will begin their season's longest road swing this weekend. Starting Friday three of the seven matches will be underway.
Along the way Litchfield will have plenty of time to toy with his line-up. With three seniors, nine freshmen and four players in between, one of which is a new transfer, more and more options are available.
The most recent transfer, Nicole Martin, is from Arkansas and will compete for playing time at the setter position.
"Right now [Martin] has a very sore shoulder from a rotator cuff problem," Litchfield said. "She has gone from being idle to very active in the heat of practice. She fits right in, and has tons of natural setting ability. It hasn't taken her very long to come in and get a feel for our team and our tempos. I think that's how you judge a setter is how quickly they come in and adjust to a new environment."
Along with Martin, there will be an interesting internal competition factor between junior Angie Parrell and freshman Cassie Conner at the setter position.
After a rough start where the Cardinals have gone 2-5, the team looks to its seniors to capitalize on the weekend's matches.
"I think fundamentally the seniors have made some improvements in the last few days," Litchfield said. "What is still yet to be seen is can we transfer that into match time. We basically need them to relax a little and let their games go; it appears that they have just been fighting it."
Ball State will play three teams in the invitational, which features Western Kentucky University, Tennessee Technological University and Appalachian State University.
"In theory," Litchfield said. "Western Kentucky University (8-5) should be the cream of the crop. They have put a lot of emphasis into their volleyball team. Tennessee Tech (1-7) is a fairly young team, and I'm a little concerned because they're a little better than their record shows. They have played a great schedule and taken some losses because of it."
One interesting thing about Tennessee Tech is that two of their players are from Muncie's Burris High School. Sophomore Katherine Lang and freshman Teresa Craig contribute to the Golden Eagle offense.
"We always see great matches out of those kids when we play them." Litchfield said.
The Cardinals know the least about Appalachian State (6-4) and look back to their match against Mercer College during the "Bama Bash."
According to Litchfield, the Cardinals are a better conditioned team and look at this weekend as a test to see what progress has been made. The Cardinals have high goals going into this road swing ahead of them.
"I think we have a chance to go 7-5 in our non-conference matches," Litchfield said. "That would be a great outcome after starting 1-5. Today we talked about that. We want to start that process by not accepting anything less that 3-0 at Western Kentucky. You hate so say it's a must win situation, but it's as close as it gets."
Ball State will take to the court today at 4 p.m. against Tennessee Tech. Saturday the Cardinals will play Appalachian State and Western Kentucky at 11:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. respectively.
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