Sideline Special

Sophomore Brookelyn Campbell was named to first team all conference and was awarded setter of the year. The lady spikers came up just short losing to North Dakota in the conference tournament.

Utah Valley volleyball setter Brookelyn Campbell gives a day-to-day, inside look of the team’s trip to North Dakota for the Great West Conference tournament. The Wolverines had just clinched the regular season conference crown and the tournament No. 1 seed the week before with a win over North Dakota at home.

Nov. 15 

Today we flew into North Dakota and we had our same bus driver from the last time, Dewey, who is awesome! For winning conference he bought us this GIANT bucket of vanilla ice cream! He also brought chocolate syrup and caramel. Yumm! It was so hard that it took Sarah, Rachel, Lacee and me to scoop out the ice cream. It was so worth it though!

Nov. 16 

Today we woke up in North Dakota at 9 a.m. for breakfast. We don’t play until Friday, so today is a chill day. We had study hall after breakfast for an hour and a half. We then left for practice and when we walked outside to get on the bus everyone was freezing! It’s about 20 degrees here – so cold! After practice we went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. I had pizza, pasta, chicken noodle soup, ice cream and the list goes on. This girl can eat! It was delicious! After leaving the buffet I was about to get onto the bus and I totally slipped on the ice and crashed into the stairs. OOPS! Dang snow…

We then made our way to the mall and I went on quite the shopping spree. I didn’t break $100, but almost! I bought some belts, tights and a couple winter jackets. A yellow and brown one, they are super cute can’t wait to wear them! Jaicee got her hair done at the mall for our banquet tonight. It was actually really smart of her because now she doesn’t have to do it tonight!

We just got back from the banquet. It was awesome! We were awarded the conference award because we won. Sara was awarded Player of the Year. Jaicee was awarded Second Team. Me, Chealea, Sara and Erica were awarded 1st team All Conference. I was awarded Setter of the Year.

Nov. 17 

The tournament started today, but since we were first we had a bye and didn’t have to play the first round. We went to watch the game against the two teams that we could possibly be playing in the semi-finals. It was against Chicago and NJIT. NJIT ended up winning and so that is who we were gearing up to play the next day.

Nov. 18 

Today is game day and we are pumped to make it through this game so we can play in the championship game. Our bus driver Dewey was awesome. He would play music videos for us on the bus to get us all pumped up for the game. He did a great job. We had our pre-game meal and then headed to the gym to get warmed up for our match. Before our game our coach did his little pep talk and then we got ourselves all pumped for the game.

We won in 3 [sets] and celebrated because that meant we were now in the championship game! After our game, North Dakota was playing HBU and during the breaks they had a hospitality room with tons of food so we would just sit and eat up there all of the chances we got because we love to eat! North Dakota ended up winning, which meant we were going to play them for the championship game – exactly who we wanted to play.

Nov. 19 

The morning of the championship game, we went to eat breakfast and then to the coaches’ room to watch film. We watched tons of film and I had even watched film the night before and the morning before we got to the coaches’ room, trying to get as ready as possible.

We all felt really prepared going into this match. We knew it would be a battle, especially since we had bet them twice before.

We started the game and they had totally changed their whole lineup, and almost everything we had studied and reviewed had gone out the window. We couldn’t stop them and we couldn’t get anything going on our side. Nothing seemed to be going our way. We get trying and trying but ended up losing in 3 sets. At the end of the day though, we realized how far we had come and what a great season we had. We had the most wins this year that UVU has ever had.

Nov. 20 

We had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to catch our flight home, so me and my roommate, Cassie, stayed up the whole night and ordered pizza at 1 a.m. to keep us awake since we had to wake in like 2 hours anyway.

It was a fun morning in the airport considering we were the only 2 slightly awake, but as soon as we sat down on the plane we were out like a light switch.