Boys & Girls Club

MNU’s Volleyball team had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the kids and staff of the Boys and Girls Club of Raytown and Wyandotte. Boys and Girls Club of America is dedicated to providing a positive and safe environment for kids to utilize in place of non supervised activities.
The kids and staff came excited to play volleyball! There was a great turn-out; the estimated head count for the afternoon was between 150 and 175 kids! There were kids present from the elementary school age through high school age and 10 to 15 staff who helped to supervise the kids.The MNU team spent part of the time teaching the kids different aspects of volleyball i.e. blocking, serving, passing, setting, and hitting; the other part of the afternoon was spent in a game of volleyball, MNU vs. The Boys and Girls Club Staff! The staff came ready to put up a good fight and the kids never stopped cheering!On October 20th, 20 to 30 Boys and Girls Club kids were bused to MNU for a home game vs. Graceland University. The kids were great fans and kept the team pumped throughout the match; they were decked out in MNU T-Shirts and big smiles.Coach Banis said, “Going to the Boys and Girls Club was a great opportunity for MNU Volleyball to get out into the community and teach kids a little about volleyball. The volleyball team had a great time and it seemed liked the kids did too! We are excited to go back to the Boys and Girls Club and to have them come back for more of our games next season.”

Tuesday, October 13

Over the weekend our team was in Dubuque, Iowa for a tournament at Clarke College. We played Ashford University and Clarke College on Friday night, and Cornerstone University and Viterbo University on Saturday. We ended up going 2-2 for the whole weekend, losing to Ashford and Cornerstone, each in three games. We beat Clarke on Friday night in five games and played another full five games to win the match against Viterbo on Saturday. We play Central Methodist on Tuesday night and we are really looking forward to proving ourselves as a team.

Thursday, September 17

Last Tuesday we played William Jewell, and it was a must win for us. This would put us at 1-1 in conference and 6-4 overall. As a team we had decided that we never wanted to be under or anywhere near 500 so we needed to win this game to make that goal a reality. We ended up dropping the first game, but we came back to win the next three. We were able to come together and finish strong, our next priority was practicing well for the rest of the week and then to come out strong against Park University.

On Tuesday we played Park University here at home. We didn’t come out as strong as any of us would have liked, but we were able to pull together and come out with the win in three games. We are now 1-1 in conference and 7-4 overall, and we have a huge tournament coming up this weekend and our goal is to go 4-0.

Tuesday, September 8

On Tuesday we played Benedictine in our first home game of the season. We all were really nervous because this was the first time our crowd was going to see this new volleyball team that everyone has been talking about. From the moment we stepped out on the floor everyone could tell that this was a different volleyball team. We had some brilliant moments throughout the match, but it wasn’t enough to upset Benedictine.

We went to practice the rest of the week hungry to get better and ready for a busy weekend. We left for Sterling, Kansas Friday morning and we played our first match at 5:00. We played Colorado Christian University, who happened to be the only NCAA Div. II team at the tournament. It took all five games, but we came out on top. Sara Phipps and Heidi Morris were able to play with us this weekend and it made a huge difference.

We played McPherson College, Oklahoma Wesleyan, and Sterling College on Saturday and we walked away with a record of 4-0 for the weekend and 5-4 for the season. We play William Jewell at home on Tuesday night, and we are very much looking forward to our second game of conference play.

Sunday, August 30

This last week has been crazy. On Tuesday we played in some scrimmage games over at William Jewell. We started out really strong, and then one of our starting middles, Heidi Morris, came down on someone’s foot and rolled her ankle. So the job of middle was left up to Sara Phipps and our right side, Megan Hayes. Both did a great job and carried our team through some tough matches. We all left the gym ready to get back to practice and work on the little things that are going to make us a great team.

We left for Culver-Stockton on Thursday night and we played our first match of the season at 5:00 Friday night. Evangel was the first team we played and none of us played the way we wanted to play, and on top of that disappointment, in the third game of the match Sara Phipps dislocated her left shoulder. Now we are down to no true middles and only one girl tall enough to even think about playing in the middle position. So for the rest of the night we tried to get through the games and play the best we could. Unfortunately we played even worse in the second match than we did in the first. Our second match was against Avila, it was a one we needed to win, and we just couldn’t get the job done.

On Saturday we had a new game plan, and we were not going to give anyone wins that they didn’t deserve. We played Lindenwood at noon, and we were a totally different team. We finally just relaxed and played, unfortunately Lindenwood has two middles that are very good, and we just couldn’t quite keep up with them. I can’t wait to see them when we have our whole team healthy. But right after that match we went right to playing Central Methodist. Sarah Allshouse stepped up and played in the middle along with Megan Hayes, and it was no small feat considering Sarah normally is a defensive specialist. We all stepped up as a team and won our first match of the season, ending the weekend with a 1 and 3 record. We play Benedictine on Tuesday for our first conference game. We play at home, and I know that this will be a season that everyone will remember.

A New Season

Going into three-a-days, none of us knew what to expect from coach or even from each other. But coming out of our first week of practice I believe that if we continue to work hard, we will turn out volleyball program around. For some of us, practices have never been more frustrating, and for others come welcome changes from the monotony of previous seasons. On Wednesday Coach posted the pre-season conference rankings, and if we weren't already motivated enough, we are ranked 8th. With our first look at other teams coming up on Tuesday, we are all looking forward to seeing someone else from across the net. I am looking forward to seeing where we will ned of this seaosn. We have unlimited potential and it is just a metter of time before we see what we can do with it.