"At the Net" - with Shay Gracy

Well its about 9 p.m. on Friday night and we just got back to the hotel from eating supper. Everyone is getting ready to call it a night since curfew is at 9:30. We had practice tonight and it was filled with a lot of emotions. We worked hard like we do every other practice, but there was something special about this practice - WE HAD FUN!!! We have all come to realization that we are not a successful team when we do not enjoy ourselves out on the court and when we have a limited amount of talking.
Therefore, with that being said, in the middle of our practice we all came together to talk things out. We all decided that instead of looking too much into ourselves about what we can do better individually, we are going to look to one another... and that talking to each other is going to be the key. So, we made a pact and the pact was to talk consistently - no matter what the circumstances are. The last two games that we have played, out on the court it has felt like we are stranded out in the middle of the ocean on six different islands. I know it sounds goofy, but that’s what it felt like and I what it looked like.

So, tomorrow we face Southwestern Oklahoma and they are 3-0 in conference. They beat Kingsville in 4 on Thursday night. SWOSU is on high right now and we are going to have to show up to play to win this match. If we can get all six cylinders going on the court we will be just fine. So our biggest challenges are to all have our killer instinct game faces on with the consistent talk that is much needed.

I am personally excited and ready for this game. It’s a big game and I want to prove to people that we aren’t a fluke when we come away with a win. We have the most talent in the conference - it is just taking a little extra effort to get it all out on the court. Therefore, I am simply ready to play. I believe with my heart that we can do it!!! I tell the girls every game day that we are going to have to earn it, that its not going to be given to us, and I think it is really starting to sink in.

Thanks for everything!!!

Shay

"Court Side" - with Sonya Sundberg

We are almost there! With midnight madness right around the corner, the team is getting very anxious to start the season. We have had a tough off-season this year from running sprints and long distance to working hard in the weight room and most importantly in pick-up games and individuals. It will all be worth it when it pays off in the season.

We have high expectations for ourselves this year, but we know other teams do as well, so we just have to keep working hard. On the downside, we have had a few injuries and people out due to sickness the last few weeks. However, we would rather it have happened now than during season, so we are thankful for that. Everyone is slowly coming back and hopefully we will all be back and healthy ready to go by October 15th.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone at Midnight Madness!!!

Go TexAnns!
Sonya

"Going the Distance" with Jared McNeil

So we finally had our first meet this past weekend in Joplin, Missouri. We raced an 8k in which all seven guys ran a personal best and the time gap from our number one through five was only 58 seconds.

For the first meet of the year - and it only being September - we are all really excited about what's to come this season. The only down side to the weekend was that three of the four teams that beat us are in our region and only three teams go to nationals from each region. We wont see any of those teams again until November, so until then, we will be working hard and getting prepared for the North Texas meet on the 2nd of October.

"At the Net" - with Shay Gracy

Once practice started today, I could finally stop replaying the last point of Saturday's game in my head. I have tried everything to come up with some realization of what happened. I have analyzed and broke down what I could have done differently to keep that ball in play. I can’t take back what happened on Saturday, but I can take ownership, move on and get ready for Thursday's game. If you couldn't already tell, we did not win on Saturday against Commerce. We played hard, tried hard, but just couldn’t stay consistent. Consistency was the key to that game and that was why it ended up the way it did. We can't dwell on the outcome of that game it is in the past now. All we can do now is prepare to take care of future business and see what is in store for us down the road.

We leave Thursday morning and head to Edmond, Oklahoma to face Central Oklahoma. Central Oklahoma is 0-2 in conference, but that still does not mean anything. The ball is in our court and we have to take care of it. Our conference is so tough that every match can belong to either team. Once, we play at UCO we will head to Weatherford, Oklahoma to face Southwestern. Southwestern is a team that is 2-0. Therefore, once again the ball is in our court, we just have to take care of it.

Today’s practice was a good practice. The girls came back ready to practice and get better. Everyone was in good spirits and ready to earn two wins this week. We have two more practices this week before we head to Oklahoma. We regrouped today after the loss on Saturday, so we can only go up from here.

Thank you again to everyone who supports us. We appreciate it greatly!!!

Go Texanns!!

Shay

"At the Net" - with Shay Gracy

1-0 IN CONFERENCE!! What a great feeling it is!!! We won last night against Texas Womens in five sets. It was awesome!!! We played so hard!! I can't explain how much emotion was out on the court last night!!! We went into that game knowing that we were going to have to earn every point - and we did. If TWU went on a roll, we did not let that bother us - we simply just kept FIGHTING!!! The atmosphere was awesome in the gym. It was so loud at times it was hard to hear the back row telling the front row where they should hit the ball. I loved it though; I would take a loud gym and have to struggle to hear my teammate any day.

TWU is a good team and I will not take that away from them. We just played extremely hard. Our serve-receive was amazingly consistent. The offense was outstanding. That was the first match that we had all five hitters going and everyone was putting the ball down. Our defense was in incredible also. The block was touching balls that we hadn’t been touching all year and our back row were digging balls that hadn’t been dug all year. At last night's game, simply everything was flowing and that allowed us to come out with a win.

We came out with the mentality that if we want to win, we have to earn it. I would say - WE EARNED IT!!! That same mentality is going to have to come out on Saturday when we face TAMU-Commerce. Commerce won as well last night and so they are going to be on the same high that we are on. We are going to need to come out disciplined and ready to earn another victory.

Thank you again fans, cheerleaders, and plowboys for all your support!! Ya'll were awesome last night!!! Come out Saturday at 2 p.m. when we play Commerce!! It’s another BIG GAME!! Autographs after the game as well!!

Go TSU!!
Shay

"Going the Distance" - with Jared McNeil

With the first meet coming up on Saturday the 19th, all the guys are looking good and are excited to compete. The mileage has gone up this season so the last couple weeks some of the guys have been feeling a little dead legged and tired, but hopefully everything well come together on race day.

It has been fun training in the rain the last four days, but so far no one is sick and that is a blessing. I think everyone on the team though is ready for some sunshine!

We leave for Joplin on Friday at 7:30 and will be competing on Saturday morning at 9:45.

"At the Net" - with Shay Gracy

This past weekend we hosted our second straight tournament and things still did not go as planned. We went 2-2 this weekend!! Don’t get me wrong, it was a great feeling to win two matches this weekend, but the disappointment was still there with the two losses. This weekend was an overall rough weekend for me. I was battling a sickness and then an unexpected injury. I was very grateful to make it through our four matches this weekend.

In the first match we played UTPB. They are a very scrappy team. They are so scrappy that there are times we think the ball is down and somehow they seem to send it right back over the net. We had our moments where we played well, but the bad moments outweighed the good. After a long chat with the coaches after the game, the team decided to come out ready to play against OPSU.

We played a lot better against OPSU. It was actually fun out on the court. We were working hard and TOGETHER, which made great things happen. When we can get all six cylinders going in a game we are unstoppable and play like the team that we can. The challenge is, how do we get all six cylinders running at the same time - at every game?

The third match we played Incarnate Word. This team has always been tough competition for us. They are a strong defensive team and we just couldn’t seem to put the ball in spots where they weren’t. At the beginning of the game we came out strong and it was a close match, but once we got to point 15 we couldn’t hang on and they would pull away. This was another game where we would have hints of all six cylinders running, but it was never consistant.

The fourth and final match was against Texas A&M International. We played good against this team. After losing to Incarnate Word we came back ready to play. Rachel Wolf played a great game offensively and had a huge impact on the outcome of the game. Like I have said previously, if we can get everyone going we are unstoppable.

We start conference play this week, so this week is a HUGE week for us!! This is when we need to put all of the preseason behind us and play like we know how too. We have played extremely tough teams this year as you can see with our record numbers. I can’t complain about our record because we did that to ourselves and we cannot dwell on that anymore. Its serious business now, this is what counts!!! We are going to work hard all week to get prepared for our first two conference matches! The great thing about this week is that we are playing both matches at home.

Starting today is our road to the conference tournament. We practice hard, we play hard, we will get rewarded. We, the Tarleton Texanns, are due for a great conference season after all the tough situations that we have been put through in non-conference play!!!

I invite all students and fans to come out and watch us play on Thursday at 7 p.m. against Texas Woman's, and on Saturday at 2 p.m. against Texas A&M Commerce.

Thanks again for all the support!! We play for you and appreciate all of it!!!! Thank you!!!


Bleed Purple!!

Shay

"At the Net" - with Shay Gracy

Well, the week started off absolutely wonderful!!! We had two great practices before we had our home opener on Wednesday night. The atmosphere in the gym was outstanding. The plowboys and cheerleaders were so loud and did such a great job keeping the crowd going. Every seat was filled that night at the game. It was so awesome looking up in the stands and looking at how many people came to game. Thank you all for coming out!!!

We played well that night against Texas Weslyan. We had all six cylinders going on the court and it was a fantastic feeling. We were jumping out of the gym. I personally felt like I was floating when I jumped from all the adrenaline pumping. That game was our first win of the season and it felt great. We were 0-4 going into that match and coming out with a win just lifted a lot of weight off of our back. This year's team has a lot of heart and a lot of talent, but it is just taking a little longer to get every thing rocking and rolling.

This weekend we traveled to Midwestern state to play in the invitational tournament. This tourney was a little better than Nebraska’s tourney, simply because we walked away with a win. We went 1-3 this weekend. Once again it was still a frustrating weekend. We did play some great teams like no. 4 ranked Emporia State from Kansas, Northwood from Michigan, Drury, and Southwest Baptist.

The game against Emporia State was a struggle. We did not play to the best of our ability and we hung with them the first two sets. So just think if we would have came and played our A-game what the scores may have been. Emporia is a very great team and there is a reason that they are ranked so high in the nation.

Northwood was the team that we beat in five. We fought hard in this game and never gave up. We defiantly were the team that was in better shape. We were not making fatigued mistakes and I think that is what allowed us to come away with the win.

The match against Drury was a different story. We were lacking a lot of things. This team was very disciplined and we were not. We were making mistakes that we would never do in practice. It was such a weird atmosphere out on the court. After that game we had a meeting in the locker room. The meeting, I think, helped a lot. I told the girls that we are going to have to earn every point in these matches and that they are not going to be given to us. These teams are good so we have to fight!! The ball is in our court and if we want to win we have to do it. It is simply not going to be given to us.

The fourth and final match of the day was against Southwest Baptist. We lost in the fifth set 15-17. We fought very, very hard. We came out pumped and ready to play!!! I can't give enough to the team about the effort and the drive that we had in this last match. We just didn’t come away with the win. The game over all was a great game - we just lost!! These types of games are good for any team cause you learn a lot by being put in a tough situation.

Therefore, over all - the weekend did not go as planned. We did learn a lot from this weekend and did improve from our trip in Nebraska. We will be hosting our tournament this weekend. So please come out and watch us perform.

Once again, thanks for all the fans that drove to Wichita Falls to watch us play and for coming to our home opener on Wednesday!!!!

Go Texanns!!!

Shay