MU Volleyball Builds on Winning Streak

Alaina Lewis

The Manchester Spartans volleyball team has a winning streak six games long; this momentum could signal the beginning of an unstoppable team.

The team is significantly younger this year, comprised of mostly first years and sophomores with one junior and two seniors. “The positives of having a younger team is they will learn and build on playing with each other, and will grow as a group over the next couple years,” said Sarah Pruden, the assistant coach. “The negative is trying to get some of the underclassmen to step up as leaders. They are still young and still learning how to be a leader, so it is hard to just have some of them step up into that role as an underclassman.”  The coaches have quite possibly archived the goal of getting the players to act in unison and getting leads to step up if the invitational wins are anything to go by.

According to the statistics, the team is on an upward winning streak, having had somewhat of a rocky beginning, starting the season with three losses. The team has turned it around; winning the past two games. “Winning is an important part,” said Riley Patterson, first year, “but also having fun while playing the game definitely is important. If you're not having fun, what's the point in playing?”

The team played four games last weekend—two on Friday and two on Saturday. On Friday the team played Governors State University with a final score of 3-0 and Wilmington College with a final score of 3-0. On Saturday the team played Great Lakes Christian College with a final score of 3-0 and IU-Northwest with a final score of 3-1. 

The volleyball team appreciates support. “Just having the student body and a large crowd is helping the team out a lot,” Pruden said. “Last year and this year there have been more students at the games than there have been in a long time. What will really help when we start our conference games is to have as big of a crowd there as we can get.”

The next home games are Saturday, Sept. 24, at 1 p.m. versus Franklin and Wednesday, Oct. 12, versus Defiance.