Murray State University Athletics
Racers Staying Focused On Goals As Winning Streak Continues
10/9/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
The Murray State volleyball team is atop the Ohio Valley Conference standings as the league's only unbeaten team at 6-0, and the program is in the midst of an 11-match winning streak, the longest such streak in school history. In fact, the Racers have lost only three of 36 games in the current streak and have won 22 straight games overall.
These are certainly great accomplishments for a team expected to have success as the co-favorite in the OVC pre-season poll, but the Racers (11-4 overall) have even more they hope to accomplish as the 2003 season hits full speed next week when they host Southern Illinois on Tuesday, Oct. 14, at 7 p.m. on "Break The Record" night at Racer Arena.
"We're proud of where we're at right now, but we want to do a lot more than just have a nice run in the middle of the season," said sixth-year head coach David Schwepker. "In my eight-plus years of being a collegiate head coach, this is the best group of players I've ever worked with and I've told them that several times. This team doesn't have the same kinds of problems that most teams have, and since the first day of practice, their focus has been on what was best for our team."
The great team chemistry and team-first attitude wasn't an accident according to Schwepker, and this team did not come together without a lot of time and effort.
"Our goal when we started recruiting the players we have now was to find players with great attitudes," Schwepker said. "I never entertained the possibility of recruiting a player with great athletic skills if she didn't have a great attitude first. I think that's why we're having the success we're having.
"It takes a lot of time to build a program the way you want, and we're certainly not an overnight success. We've had a very defined plan for where we wanted to take this program over the last three years and it's starting to pay off."
One of the many keys to MSU's success in 2003 has the been the cohesion between the Racers' eight American-born players and their four foreign-born players. Something that many people would expect to be a distraction has actually been a strength of the team.
Individually, sophomore outside hitter Paige Sun, a native of Beijing, China, has been named OVC Offensive Player of the Week twice in 2003, while she currently leads the league in kills per game at 4.74 and is sixth in hitting percentage (.297) and digs per game (3.89). Sophomore setter Nikki Wong of Shijiazhung, China, leads the conference in assists per game at 12.04 and is fifth in hitting percentage (.307).
As a team, the Racers lead the conference in hitting percentage (.275), assists per game (15.43) and kills per game (16.83), and according to Schwepker, all of this is attributed to the each player being on the same page.
"This team really has fun together, and each player understands her role on the team," Schwepker said. "Each player realizes that our main goal is to put our best team on the floor every time we play, and they really believe in that. They don't worry about individual stats or playing time, and it's a great dynamic to our team."
MSU opened the season by losing its first four matches. The Racers fell to Michigan, Louisville and Texas A&M in MSU's season-opening tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich., and dropped its first match at the Bowling Green State Tournament to Iowa State.
But since those early losses to programs from the Big Ten, Big 12 and C-USA, the Racers have pulled together to win every match, and take two tournament titles, at the BGSU tourney and the Middle Tennessee State Invitational in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the first time in MSU history to win two volleyball tournaments in a single season.
"I think, if I had it to do over again, I'd have chosen a less-challenging tournament to open the season with because I don't think we were fully prepared to face nationally-ranked teams and the kind of things we saw in Ann Arbor," Schwepker said. "Since those early matches, we've become a much better team, and I really believe, if we'd played those teams a couple of weeks later, we could've pulled a couple of them out."
For Schwepker, his team's success in 2003 has not been a huge surprise, though he has been caught off-guard by their ability to find a way to win even when they're not at their best.
"We've pulled out some games throughout the season that I really didn't expect us to win with the way we were playing," said Schwepker. "There've been several instances where we haven't been our best, and we've gotten behind, but we were still able to pull the game out and win the match 3-0. We've certainly pulled out some games this year that, in the past, we'd have lost because of our lack of maturity and our attitude.
"We've always played hard, but this year's team has a dynamic about them that is exactly what you want as a head coach, in any sport."
There are still a lot of matches to be played, and a lot of potential problems out there for the Racers, but things are coming together very nicely for MSU in 2003.
"The players on our team know exactly what they want to accomplish, and we know we're still not there yet," said Schwepker. "But, if we can continue to work each day the same way we've worked so far this year, we'll have a shot at a great run over the second half of the season."
