By Jerika Ihnen
Raver Intern

Ever notice how Thursday and Friday classes seem to drop in attendance about every other week?  Yes, it is possible that some students are taking an early weekend, but for a select few student athletes, these days are spent on buses and hotel rooms. This past weekend, the Lady Hardrocker volleyball team traveled to Valley City and Jamestown, N.D. On this seven hour bus trip one could find setter Becky Keilholtz listening to her iPod, watching movies and studying her scouting report, middle hitter Paige Corcoran studying for her upcoming test in Engineering Economics while braiding Katherine Hanson’s hair and outside hitter Madi “X-factor” Lane dreaming about hitting through the Lady Vikings block and scoring the winning point of the match as she took a well deserved nap.

After the never-ending bus trip, the team then unpacks into what becomes a “home-away-from-home”: the hotel room.  The team must literally learn to live out of a bag for the duration of the weekend.  Finally after days of preparation, hours spent on the bus and countless time devoted to memorizing the scouting report, the big match arrives.

The stat leaders for the weekend games were sophomore Madisen Lane with 18 kills, 6 solo blocks and 7 assist blocks and junior Paige Corcoran 13 kills, 3 solo blocks and 7 assist blocks. The sophomore libero Reanna Roberson had 19 digs and freshman setter Alex Mader had 33 assists and 11 digs on the weekend.

Coach Tiffany Mastin commented, “We played great at times, but at other times we let both teams go on too many runs of points against us. We need to continue working hard at a consistent level , really pushing ourselves to get better. Jessie Guthals and Madisen Lane both had a great weekend for us. We need to continue working on offensively putting balls away when needed, as well as finishing matches.  We are working to continue to get better and be positive.  We need to take a good look at this past weekend, learn lessons appropriately, and then move onto pushing the other DAC schools in every match.”