If it has not been one problem, it has been another.
That is just how the season has gone for Ball State and coach Steve Shondell. And for him, it is a season unlike any he has seen in his more than 35 years as a volleyball coach.
Much of that is because of the amount of injuries he has had to deal with in his third year as Ball State’s coach.
Ball State started the season banged up and without redshirt freshmen outside hitter Marquita Marshall and middle blocker Kelly Hopkins. Marshall returned to the court for one weekend tournament before being sidelined the rest of the year with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Then Ball State junior setter Jacqui Seidel missed the last two matches against Kent State and Ohio with concussion symptoms.
Junior libero Catie Fredrich was the last one to go. She missed Saturday’s match against Ohio because of what Shondell called a ligament injury in her arm. Without the Cardinals’ All-Mid-American Conference libero, Shondell’s team struggled with ball control, posting only 35 digs in the three sets and committing seven serve receive errors.
The injuries have come at the worst time for Ball State, as the Cardinals’ consistency had improved since MAC play started. But this season has been filled with bad luck for Shondell.
“I never seen anything like this happen,” Shondell said. “At least any team that I’ve coached.”
Shondell said injuries like this have never been a big issue for his teams, but he realizes years like this can happen.
“I think if you coach long enough, probably there’s going to be one year where you actually experience something like we’ve experienced this year,” he said. “If you stay in it long enough, it’s going to happen probably. I’ve been very fortunate it’s never happened to me, because if you lose one or two key players, it does make a key difference in volleyball.”
Senior outside hitter Kara Bates said she believes these things happen for a reason.
“What we’ve gone through this year is completely for a reason,” Bates said. “I think at the end of the season we’re going to do awesome, we’re going to win the MAC and we’re going to go and [reach] our ultimate goal of being in the Sweet 16. I’m a firm believer that something good is going to come out of this.”
For much of the non-conference season, Shondell said the team was still learning to play with the new rotation. But right as that rotation started making progress, the rotation lost two of its most important players — libero and setter.
While Shondell said he hopes to have both players back soon, the losses are starting to add up for the Cardinals. At 10-11 and 3-5 in the MAC, Ball State still is competing to qualify for the MAC tournament in November.
Ball State’s poor record is a bit of an enigma for some. The Cardinals lead the MAC in attack percentage at .232 and are fifth in opponent attack percentage, holding teams to a .197 mark. Ball State is also fourth in the conference in digs. One of the areas Ball State has struggled in statistically is in blocking, an area Shondell said the team has improved in throughout the year.
Bates does not really have an answer on why the Cardinals are sitting less than .500 after 21 matches.
“It’s ridiculous,” Bates said. “It doesn’t make sense. It really doesn’t.”
But wins matter, and Bates said it is about getting the lineup to work no matter what players are on the court.
“It’s something you can’t really wrap your mind around,” she said. “We’re just trying to focus on one thing at a time right now. Right now, it’s just the players who can play and getting that lineup to work.”
