VOLLEYBALL ENDS 2-A-DAYS

I am sure all of our players are excited at the phrase "We are finished with pre-season practices!". After 2 weeks of nothing but volleyball the players will start school this Monday and start gearing up for their first matches of the season this coming Friday.

We have seen great strides with our development this preseason. We still have much to improve if we wish to meet our goals, but we are starting to look like a strong unit.

We ended preseason with a team scrimmage that allowed us to give everybody equal reps to show their 'stuff'. At this point we are still unsure of who 1/2 our starters will be. Currently, it looks like it will be a game-time decision for some of these spots. With our youth comes great opportunities at certain positions and this has created a competitive atmosphere with these players. If we can keep this development up I see us having different options later in the season. Ahhh, a coaches' dream!

At the scrimmage we started to see some fight in certain players and team synergy being displayed on offense and defense. Unity is always important but this will be relied upon heavily until we gain more experience throughout the season.

Seniors Lauren Thedford and Teresa Dunn have shown great strides since last year. They will be at one of the OH and S positions respectively. Junior Erika Dupree will most likely be the other S and serve as a RS hitter when front row. Sophomores Lauren Beville and Kelsey Mangum are battling it out for the libero spot. Junior transfer Keidra Williams is stepping out at the MB position. The other spot at MB is closely contested between sophomore Erin Dougherty redshirt freshman Laura Iwuchukwu. Redshirt freshman Haleigh Cearly and sophomore Stormi Lancaster are fighting for the 2nd RS position with freshman Rosalyn Thorpe close behind. The last OH position is extremely close with freshmen Halie Harton and Ashley Davis. Both bring a great presence with them on the court.

IF we can have a sense of urgency this team has tremendous potential. They are fun to be around and know how to handle the coaches when we get a little 'upset':) This team has a great energy.

I welcome all of you to join us this coming Friday and Saturday for our opening tournament where we will be hosting 10 teams. The tournament schedule will be online soon. The matches we play are extremely important for us in terms of regional seeding: UTPB, St. Ed's and DBU are the top 3 programs in the Heartland Conference. These matches will go a long way in helping us secure a spot in November. Our 4th match will be against rival LCU, a great program just down the road. Please check out times and location at www.gobuffsgo.com. Hope to see you there!

Welcome to the WT Athletics Blog

New for the 2010-11 school year will be the WT Athletics Blog. Members of the WT Athletics Media Relations will make weekly posts throughout the year to keep all WT fans up to date one what is happening with WT Athletics.

We will give you an inside look into what is going on with all of WT's sports teams and it's athletes.

Later on in the year, look for both student-athletes and coaches to give you the scoop of what is going on in their worlds, too.

Feel free to leave comments on any and all blogs and we will do our best to answer any of your questions/comments.

A note from the desk of Coach Cooper

We are days away from having the entire 2010-2011 Buff Basketball team back on campus. We will soon begin our preseason workouts and look to quickly come together as a basketball team. Our preseason will consist of weights, conditioning, and individual workouts. An individual workout consists of our staff working with 4 players at a time due to NCAA rules. This helps us and our players focus on little things that we think might help a player before we jump into full team practice on October 15th.

I once saw a quote many years ago that has stuck with me ever since.

“Are you motivated, frustrated or intimidated?”

In order to grow as a player, you need to be motivated. We feel that our players have been very motivated to improve themselves over the summer. We also hope that this motivation continues throughout the entire preseason.

Classes begin August 30th, and our staff is very excited as we get ready for the new academic and athletic school year.

2010 WTAMU VOLLEYBALL IS HERE!

Greetings,

The 2010 WTAMU Volleyball Team is on campus and ready to start drills tomorrow, Monday. The coaching staff is very excited to start working with this group of players.

We lost 5 starters from the 2009 team and return 2! However, we knew this day was coming. Therefore, we brought in 8 players in 2009 whose goal was to be ready for this year. We also brought in a great 2010 class and they will compete immediately for playing time. 75% of our roster are underclassmen.

We are quick and athletic. We just need to show the players our system and get them to gel. This group's energy and excitement level is high so I think we will have a good time showing them the ropes. The only tough part is the shortenned season due to NCAA rules. We have 2 weeks of pre-season and then we host an 11 team tournament. The following weekend we go to the Colorado Premiere and will probably end up playing 4 top-15 programs.

After the Premiere we will start conference play and look forward to defending our title. See you at the games!

A note from the desk of Coach Cooper

Fall individual workouts and conditioning workouts are right around the corner for the 2010-2011 Buff Basketball team. We have 14 young men that will be participating in our program next year. We are really excited about the team we have assembled for this coming year. They have been working hard this summer to build good work habits that will carry us through the 2010-2011 season. Our staff is very anxious to get the team on campus and begin our fall workouts. It is a very fun time for us, and I think a fun time for our players (although you may have to ask them about that). It is obvious to me that we have a sound nucleus of players returning (8) and a solid group of newcomers (6). There is just no substitute for solid leadership. I will put forth no predictions, but we really like this team. We will have to “gel” as a team, but if we continue to work hard, this will be a really fun season.