Getting Closer….
In my four year volleyball career I have now had the opportunity to play our rival (Penn State) 9 times. I am 0-9 in those matches.
My first two seasons here at Mason we were never even close to competing with the Nittany Lions. However, by my junior year, I really felt like we had the talent to compete with these guys. Much to my dismay, during our regular season they put us in our place providing us with two sweeps. We were given one more chance in the finals of our EIVA conference tournament. The winner would move on to the Final Four.
The first two sets went much like our past, and it looked like we were going to take an early exit. The third set truly changed the dynamic of our rivalry from that point forward. We aced the Nittany Lions off the court, and made a very strong effort in the 4th game as well. We did still lose this match in 4, but it was apparent that we had finally seen the fear in their eyes we had been looking for all these years.
This season we actually had a match point in our match at home. We still ended up dropping the match in 5 sets to a sold out crowd, but we are really starting to get the sense that we are knocking on the door. This is all happening very late in our senior careers, but I think it is finally time for us to play the match of our careers. If we take care of business we will have this opportunity on April 27th when we take on Penn State at State Park.