A weekend of ups and downs for Bulls

It was a rollercoaster weekend for the volleyball team as the Bulls won their first game of the season, broke personal records and faced intense adversity at the Western New York Invitational.

The Bulls (1-7) started the tournament Friday evening against the Valparaiso Crusaders (4-1), getting swept (30-26, 30-19, 30-17). The match marked the fifth straight loss for the Bulls during 2007 season.

"It's very disappointing," said head coach Jim Lodes. "I think we are trying to do a lot of things better based on what we do in practice, but we're still not necessarily doing them better. At the same point, I like our effort at practice, but I wish it would carry over. It eventually will, but we have to keep grinding hard and working hard at practice to make sure what we work on will transfer over to game situations."

Junior Claudia Neba led the Bulls with seven kills and added three blocks, while senior Lizaiha Garcia had seven digs and freshman Lindsey Schlegel led the team with three aces. Angie Porche who finished with 13 kills led Valparaiso and Nicole Schulz added 11 kills. In addition, Sara Hughes had 25 assists and Brittany Malicot had 15 digs.

"I fully believe the team wants to be good; I fully believe they want to do their best," Lodes said. "I don't get the feeling they don't have the right desires. They need to stay more committed at the tasks at hand. They need to work hard the whole play through."

On Saturday, the Bulls participated in a double header, where they won their first match against South Florida (2-1) in a 3-2 thriller (30-28, 30-23, 30-25, 31-29, 15-8).

"We showed some resiliency (in the match against South Florida)," Lodes said. "I wasn't necessarily happy how we played the whole match, but we found ways at key times to help us win the match."

Help came from five players, particularly Neba, Schlegel, Garcia, and freshmen Marissa Hornbaker and Richelle Bigelow. The five girls had double figures in kills with 12, 11, 10, 20 and 22 respectively.

"I'm proud of their efforts to fight back when it would have been easy to potentially quit, as we were down 25-29, so I'm happy with the way we played," Lodes said.

Marcela Grugel, who finished with 17 kills and 15 digs, led South Florida. Nakia Williams had eight block assists and 10 kills for USF.

Later Saturday evening, the Bulls fell to West Virginia (5-1) in a sweep (30-24, 30-21, 30-18). While the team could not pull out a victory, Garcia gained a personal milestone, setting a new school record for career digs. Garcia broke a 16-year-old school record set by Ann Reed by recording 1,531 career digs.

Nonetheless, the loss left a sour taste in the team's mouths.

"I was disappointed and frustrated with our efforts," Lodes said. "With a victory before, I expected us to get it done."

Sophomore Maria Mezzadri finished with a career-high nine kills, as well as the first solo block of her career. For West Virginia, Tammy Wolf led the team with 15 kills, with Abby Tevis not far behind with 12 kills. Kailee Goold had 35 assists, while Bonnie West added 13 digs to WVU's win.

On Sunday afternoon, the Bulls' finished play in the Western New York Invitational with yet another heartbreaking loss, this time to Albany (2-3). The Bulls won the first game, but Albany took the second and never looked back, winning the next two games (30-27, 30-23, 30-20. 30-10). Hornbaker had a team-high 11 kills, while Mezzadri had eight kills. Sophomore Ellen Robertson had two services aces, which helped the team get to its total of seven for the match.

"In game one, we found a way to win, which was awesome," Lodes said. "In game two, we were staying close to them, but they found a way to win. In game three, we should be embarrassed. We were down so much, and then had to waste energy to catch up. You can't fight that hard and give up five-point runs. In game four, we gave up too many runs, and it was too late. You can't wait to fight, you have to fight the whole match."

Kamisha Kellam of Albany led her team with 21 kills and Amanda Cowdery added 18. Tawney Dhames helped lead the team to victory with 14 digs, while Brooke Stanley had 30 assists.

The Bulls concluded the weekend tournament with mixed feelings.

"If these past two weekends don't show us what it takes to compete at a high level, then we are confused because we've played good teams the whole time," Lodes said. "What we have to do is compete hard every day in those matches, and we have to fight the whole match and not just select moments. If we can do that, we can be a special team. I think we have a lot of potential and that we can compete in the MAC, but we have to find a way to work through the tough moments sooner."

The Bulls will complete their five-match homestand Wednesday night as they host Big 4 rival Niagara University. The match against the Purple Eagles will begin at 7:00 p.m. at Alumni Arena.