After their first tournament in Eau Claire was canceled this past weekend due to the weather conditions, the Men’s Club Volleyball team will play in its first competition of the season in River Falls, Wisc. this weekend.
The tournament, hosted by River Falls, will include teams from some of the smaller public schools in Wisconsin, such as Eau Claire along with a few MIAC schools such as St. John’s and Bethel. “A lot of the teams we play are from Wisconsin, and then some of the other MIAC schools have club teams similar to ours. The competition will be pretty tough. We may win or we may lose, but the most important thing is to have fun and go out and play and represent Gustavus,” Senior Captain Andy Sharp said.
Sharp, along with Junior Captain Evan Taylor, have been instrumental in helping the Men’s Club Volleyball team grow since they became involved with the team. “I started playing when I was a sophomore, and I guess the program at that time was kind of just beginning. The team at the time was mostly seniors ,and so, at that time, I think it was fairly new,” Sharp said. “I think it has grown in terms of the participation and people coming to practice. Our team is really open to new people coming and playing, and if they’re interested in playing in tournaments, they’re more than welcome to come and play.”
Sharp and Senior Jon Schmidt are in the minority on the volleyball team, as Schmidt joined his sophomore year as well. “I joined men’s club volleyball my sophomore year when we had a bunch of seniors on the team. It was fun to play with them because they had more experience. It’s unlike the team we have right now. Now we have a lot of young people, and there’s not a whole lot of seniors,” Schmidt said. “It’s fun because I’ve gotten to see a lot of improvement out of people, and we are starting to look more like two years ago when we were good.”
The team practices two nights a week, but it doesn’t have a formal coach. Senior Margeaux Demmer and Junior Megan Hoeft help lead practices and run drills. “They have experience with volleyball and played in high school. Many of us on the team haven’t played before college, so I guess they bring their expertise and the knowledge of drills to work with us and improve our skills,” Sharp said.
Schmidt spoke specifically in terms of what they try to accomplish each practice. “We spend a lot of time working on the things we are lacking, such as hitting lines. We also spend a lot of time trying to work better as a team, so we can mesh better and know how everybody plays. We play best when hitters are in sync with the setters and when the setters are in sync with the back row,” Schmidt said.
Besides not having a formal coach, the Club Volleyball team has faced other challenges in terms of their competition and participation. “We play against a lot of [Division] I and [Division] II schools that have been playing together for a while. It’s hard as a club sport to learn our team dynamics and to have that stay consistent. Men’s Volleyball is recognized by a lot of other schools, so their teams have been playing with each other a lot longer,” Sharp said.
“Being a club sport is tough because people aren’t as committed as they otherwise would be to a varsity sport,” Schmidt said. “It’s tougher to get people to come to practices regularly. When people go, they kind of expect it’s just going to be fun, and we are just going to play games. They don’t know that we are serious about volleyball.”
After this weekend, the Men’s Club Volleyball team will plan its remaining tournaments, depending on how much money it has. In the past, the team has hosted a tournament as well as traveled to tournaments at St. John’s and Mankato.
The team has a couple goals in mind for the season. “One goal for this season is to instill in our team that we are a club sport, and participation and recruitment is really important. Even though we are a club sport, there are definitely people on campus [who] are interested in participating. We just have to find those people,” Sharp said. “Another goal for our team is to just have fun. I really didn’t think I would ever be playing volleyball, and it was a lot more fun that I ever thought.”
“A team goal for us would be to end a tournament and feel good about how we played. I don’t know what our competition level will be, but I want us to feel like we played well together as a team and competed to the best of our ability,” Schmidt said.
Yet, there is one thing every member of the Men’s Club Volleyball team shares: they all enjoy playing volleyball. “When I got here, I didn’t really want to play [soccer] any more after playing all the way through high school. It was good to play a team sport here and have a common goal and compete as a team. The group is pretty diverse and comes from different places and areas of study. It’s fun to get us all together, and we enjoy playing together,” Sharp said.
“I enjoy smashing the ball as hard as I can into the other team’s faces,” Schmidt said. “But seriously, though, I do enjoy hitting.”