And so the Journey Begins

Kyle McDonald,  Sports Writer, @kylesportsbias

The UVU Women’s Volleyball team will embark on a journey to seek out a prize they so desperately seek this coming weekend in Bakersfield, California.  It is a prize and a goal that would make an up and down season worth every minute of hard work and every drop of hard earned sweat.  The WAC Conference Volleyball Tournament is set to begin on Thursday and the Wolverines couldn’t be more excited.

“It’s like what we’ve been preparing for all season and I think we have been playing really good lately so we’re like ready,” says senior leader McKenna Tait.  The Wolverines finished the regular season with back to back sweeps over rival Utah State and conference foe Grand Canyon and head into the conference tournament with a lot of momentum.  “We’ve done some good things lately so I think that helps with our confidence,” stated Tait.

Coach Sam Atoa feels the same way as his senior leader.  “This is what we’ve been working for, is the opportunity to make it to the NCAA tournament,” Atoa said.  “There are some good things that happening right now at the end that I really like as far as our team is doing.”

In a conference championship tournament it is either win or go home and a lot of the times it comes down to who is playing the best ball at the right time. That is exactly what the UVU Volleyball teams is doing. The Wolverines are playing their best volleyball of the season right now and according to Coach Atoa “it’s taken us a little while to get us to be able to gel and to put together things that we felt like we could do at the beginning…. We’re going through a lot of learning experiences….those growing experiences are helping us to be able to kind of get ourselves to play our best ball here at the end.”

Knowing that there is pressure though doesn’t have either the coach or his senior leader worried a bit.  Both feel confident in the leadership on the team and the closeness of the team that they can be successful and that by taking it one match, one game, and one set at a time they can stay focused on the task at hand and bring home the prize they desire.

For the Wolverines, who had high hopes for a successful season yet struggled to find consistency throughout the regular season, who have had great success in the past seasons as member of the Great West Conference and even in their first year of the WAC, whose seniors don’t want their careers to end just yet, the time is at hand to make the most of this opportunity to rise above and come home victorious.

“We take care of that and that kind of erases certain things that have happened in the past,” Coach Atoa said in referring to previous losses and struggles throughout the season.  For these Wolverines, it will be all about who wants it more.