Hello all! It appears that this will be my last diary entry as a New Mexico State University athlete on the volleyball team. Even though my eligibility is exhausted, in my heart I will always be a player no matter what! I’ll give you a little insight on the things that have unfolded in the last few weeks…

It was the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We left Las Cruces early in the morning and flew to Las Vegas, Nevada. And can I say that I just love the flight attendants on Southwest Airlines. They are so bright and chipper very early in the morning. There was one flight attendant in particular who brightened many people’s faces. As he got on the intercom of the plane, he specifically told everyone to look directly into the eyes of someone seated next to them. He then said, “Repeat after me, I wish.” There was a slight murmur of voices throughout the plane. Then you hear him again, “People, please just repeat after me, I wish.” Again, there was a slightly louder murmur of voices. The flight attendant cleared his throat, “People, don’t be shy and speak up, repeat after me, I wish.” Finally a distinctive number of voices spoke the words “I wish.” The flight attendant then finished the sentence by saying, “I wish, when you looked in the mirror, you were as pretty as me.” As everyone repeated the words, there was an eruption of laughter. What a funny and playful way to start off your day after a warm cup of coffee! It just made me smile.  Continue Reading This Post >>

What a whirlwind of events! These last couple of weeks have been rather hectic. Most of you were at the last home game of the season, and might I add, it was a rather special night. It was Senior Night in the Pan American Center when the Lady Aggies took on the Idaho Vandals. It was a well played match on both sides of the net, and the Aggies took the match in five games.

As it has become tradition on the volleyball team, the underclassmen surprise the senior class with personalized shirts. We wear these shirts during warm-ups. This year they made camouflage shirts with bright pink lettering. The front of it said “Seniors” with two pistols crossings just underneath, which was followed by the words “We got the guns.” The back of the shirt had the seniors’ names on it. It’s always fun to see what the underclassmen have in store for us, and it is something that as a Senior, you look forward to all year long. Along with a t-shirt, the underclassmen make a personalized scrapbook. Every team member decorates their own page to put in the scrapbook. It is a type of memento, so that the seniors can look at it and remember their teammates in the years to come. It is a very warm and caring tradition that makes NMSU a great place to spend four years.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Reality is starting to set in.  This is it folks, my senior year as an Aggie volleyball player.  I have been thinking about this year since the very beginning of my college career.  And truth be told, it isn’t exactly how I pictured it.  But then again, what is?  Looking back at all the good times and the bad has made me realize just what a feat it is to achieve this honor of being a senior captain.  What a roller coaster ride!

I, along with many other teammates, have put our hearts and souls into this volleyball program.  It has our sweat, blood, and tear stains in the midst of it.  Working hard to achieve that goal that we set our eyes on, we have overcome obstacles that many people believed we could never achieve.  As a senior, you start to see things in a different light.  The underclassmen think, “We can do that next year, next year it will happen.”  But for seniors, we don’t get that opportunity.  It’s the end of the line for us.  Now or never.  Continue Reading This Post >>

What a whirlwind of events! It is amazing how great it feels to be back in the big town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. We had a very long week a couple weeks ago. After playing against UNM on Tuesday, October 13 for our “Dig Pink” game, we flew out the next morning for San Jose, California. I can honestly tell you that gym was a hot box! Imagine a very small gymnasium, much smaller than even Las Cruces High School, with the furnaces on. It felt like we were in Hawai'i already. The game against San Jose was good for our team. We went out on that court and got to work. Although, during the third set we lost focus and vision and ended up dropping the set. We were able to come back and battle in the fourth game to win the match.

Then it was the day everyone looks forward to… Friday. We left the hotel at six in the morning and arrived in Honolulu, Hawai'i at one o’clock in the afternoon local time (which was five o’clock Las Cruces time). Talk about a very long flight. Poor Stephanie Ziegler has had a sinus infection for the last couple weeks. She couldn’t even hear what I was saying to her when we arrived at baggage claim. But you didn’t hear any gripes or complaints from her, no siree! She is a trooper!  Continue Reading This Post >>

Another week has come to a close for NMSU volleyball. The Nevada game was quite the nail biter. In the first game we came back from a very large deficit to win the game by three points. Believe you me; we don’t like to see that any more than you do. Even though, it is fun to be on the edge of your seat and have the adrenaline pumping through your veins with every movement of the volleyball. It’s quite an incredible experience when you have that love and passion for the game that can take your breath away.

As you all know, we swept Nevada (meaning we beat them in three games) and we lost to Hawaii (#4 in the nation) in four games on Saturday, October 3, 2009. I recall the locker room talk, and the looks and feelings of competitiveness on each and every player’s face when we stepped out of the locker room. It was a look of confidence and determination. We played a really great game at times, but in the end, we got into such a bad slump of errors that we just couldn’t pull ourselves back out.  Continue Reading This Post >>

After a full week of hard work and dedicated practice, we are on the right path to opening up conference play. To get us warmed up we played against UTEP. Beating them in four games was a wonderful way to end the I-10 Rivalry for the Seniors. We are undefeated in our volleyball careers against UTEP, and I wish the future Aggie players all the luck in the world and great confidence in continuing this streak. You can do it!

The environment was loud and exciting. UTEP had quite a few fans, but we were able to score a small sea of crimson fans ourselves. Thanks for coming and giving us the drive and focus to have a competing edge on those Miners. You were all absolutely wonderful! I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed having you there.

We also played in Louisiana this past weekend. We flew into the Dallas Love airport and drove five hours on a charter bus to arrive in Ruston, Louisiana. The trip went pretty well. A definite perk about the drive was our ability to watch movies on the mini television screens placed throughout the bus. Most of the players slept and from what I understood it was not a very restful sleep. The movie was loud in places over the speakers and the sway of the bus made some people a little motion sick. It’s almost like being out to sea on the dry land. What a concept!  Continue Reading This Post >>

Hello all! Well as I'm sure you already know it has been a rough couple of weeks for NMSU Volleyball. After our losses from the Hotel Encanto Tournament held in Las Cruces (vs. Florida State and No. 8 Illinois), and the losses on the road in Notre Dame (vs. Wisconsin and Notre Dame), the team has really picked up and looked forward to the next battle. Oh, and sorry about the close match against UTEP, we just wanted to make sure your hearts were working properly. And it looks like they are! Congratulations!

Before we get into how the team is interacting, I must tell you about our trip to Indiana. We were able to go see "Touchdown Jesus" which is the mural painted on the library, directly across from the Notre Dame Football Stadium. It was a really neat sight to see so much history that you will more than likely only get to see on television. Our team shrinks down in size considerably while on the road; we are only able to take twelve girls while traveling. By having 19 people on the roster; when we practice on the road, it feels like we just aren't complete. The coaches even say, "Is this everyone?"  Continue Reading This Post >>

Hello all you volleyball fans! We made it back from Denton, Texas all in one piece. It was a victorious weekend and we are currently UNDEFEATED! Oh boy, that feels good to say out loud. But it was especially a good weekend for me. Unbeknownst to me, my mother called the assistant coach, Stevi Maytubby, two weeks previously to make arrangements about the University of North Texas weekend. On Friday morning, I walked into the lobby of the hotel, we were getting back from scouting the other teams in the tournament, and sitting on the couch was my mother, Cheri Goodan, and aunt, Allison Tcherneshoff. It was such a surprise!  Continue Reading This Post >>

Hello all you dedicated Aggie Volleyball fans! I hope this diary entry finds you all well and excited for the upcoming season. Boy, time sure has flown by hasn’t it? It was just yesterday that I was an incoming freshman meeting everyone and trying to get accustomed to all the new volleyball lingo. It was as if coach was talking in a whole new language! Left side transition, step out, left hand in the setter’s face, block, get overpass, and the list goes on and on… I remember an incident when we were doing a drill and coach was yelling at me to “step out.” I was very flustered at that time, and I started walking off the court. Coach stopped practice and asked what I was doing. I thought he meant, get out of the drill and step off the court. He actually meant for me to step over and block the ball. He found my new found knowledge of the game to be quite humorous and laughed at me. Looking back, it really was quite a concept. But even as a senior, there are always new things to learn. The learning process never stops.  Continue Reading This Post >>

Hello to all the dedicated NMSU Volleyball fans reading this diary!  I am very excited to be the one writing this diary this season.  This will be my first and last year to write it, so please bear with me.  I might be a student in the education department; yet, in my point of view, those of us who can't do... teach!
 
I would like to give you a recap of how our season ended last year.  In the 2008 season we finished in Berkley, California where we faced the #8 ranked team of the nation.  Making it to the second round of the NCAA tournament was a challenge; it was an exhilarating experience knowing that we were in a position where no other NMSU Volleyball player had ever been before.  We lost the match in four games.  After winning the third game of the match, we had the motivation and the momentum to attack California, but somewhere in the middle, we lost the momentum and California came back to take the game.  It was a heart wrenching loss, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Continue Reading This Post >>