This season freshman setter Ellen Kreuger will supply a UND volleyball blog for Sioux fans to keep up with the team and get an inside glimpse at the life of a freshman student-athlete adjusting to college life. Here is the first edition of the "Ellen's Page", compliments of Miss Kreuger (pronounced Kree-ger).
Ellen's Page: Volume 1 "Welcome to college!"
It has almost been three weeks now since we freshies (known as the special 7) packed up our bags and moved to the lovely town of Grand Forks to attend UND.The first day we arrived it was almost surreal. It was strange to be saying goodbye to our parents because it felt like we were just going to another volleyball camp during the summer, and would return home after the week was up.It was weird to wrap our heads around the fact that we wouldnt be going home until Thanksgiving break.
The following Monday we had meetings all day and physicals…everyone's favorite thing in the entire world (note sarcasm). We started practice the next day on Tuesday. Wait, let me re-phrase that; we started TWO-A-DAYS the next day on Tuesday. That only meant one thing, preseason had finally begun.The first few days of practice went better then I had expected, the upperclassmen were super nice and it was easy to tell that they were just as excited to have us in the gym as we were to be there. After months of waiting it was a good feeling to finally be in the gym with the team and be an official Sioux volleyball player.
After about four days the soreness in our legs and arms began to go away and our bodies were getting used to our 5-hour practices and living off of dorm food. However, the heat was pretty brutal in the dorm rooms, but it cooled off the second week of practice, which was nice. Thank goodness that volleyball is played inside a nice air conditioned gym!
Pre-season flew by and the Special 7 finally got to move into our official dorm rooms in Squires Hall.We had to stay in McVey for the first week-and-a-half because Squires was getting new windows installed. Coach gave the team a day off, and that day was known to us freshies as official move in day. Even though it was our day off, we definitely got our workout in by moving all of our things (including fridges, futons, dressers and boxes of miscellaneous things) up to the third floor of Squires. Did I mention Squires doesnt have an elevator? Ha ha.
The next thing we knew it was Saturday night, the alumni game! It was fun to be able to play against some competition other than our own players to get a feel for the game with our new team. We ended up playing four games in the match and we won all of them.
Last Monday was the first day of in-season practice and it was nice to be able to sleep in and then go to practice at 12:30. On Wednesday, however, we had wonderful lifting scheduled at 6:45 am, followed by class, then practice, then more class.
But, hey, I guess that's college life. The rest of this week we will just be practicing and preparing as much as we can for the tournament this weekend. I hope all goes well and we start out the year with some wins! GO SIOUX!
