The continued development of sophomore right-side hitter Lauren Grant and junior outside hitter Kara Bates came into full view in Ball State's loss to Western Michigan last Friday.
Both players reached their career-highs in kills and were the two attackers in the match for Ball State. As transfer players coming into the 2011 season, it's been a season-long progression worth waiting for.
Bates had two weeks of stellar offensive production earlier this season with 4.25 kills per game in a four-match span in late September, well above her 3.15 average for the entire season. Grant, however, has gradually carved out a role on offense match-by-match, waiting until Western Michigan to have a break-out performance.
As the final week in the Mid-American Conference schedule begins, a home match versus Eastern Michigan at 7 p.m. today provides Grant with a shot at building on her recent play.
It certainly hasn't gone unnoticed, with coach Steve Shondell and teammate Kylee Baker both raving about her this week.
"She really was a go-to player for us this weekend and put a lot of balls away," Shondell said. "She's really come along in the second half of the season."
"I think that Lauren Grant had a phenomenal weekend," Baker said. "She always does good."
In only her second season of collegiate volleyball, Grant has enjoyed a significant bump in playing time. She's gone from six matches played at Cincinnati in 2010 to 23 matches at Ball State in 2011, starting 12 of them.
"It's been a really positive and fun experience for me, and I've been having a lot of fun," she said.
Grant's rise to prominence comes at the right time. Ball State needs two wins this weekend to keep pace with conference leaders Northern Illinois and Western Michigan heading into next week's MAC Tournament.
With Eastern Michigan (20-9, 8-6) tonight and Central Michigan (14-11, 7-7) on Saturday, Ball State (22-5, 11-3) is concentrating on closing out matches. Leads in the final five points of games were quickly erased against Northern Illinois last week. It left Baker to say finishing strong is the primary phase of the game for the Cardinals to work on.
"One of the mental things that we need to work on is just finishing the game," Baker said. "You can have players that are one to 20 point players, and then there's players that are 21 to 25. It's just that execution that we need to get."
Executing in both matches could still earn Ball State a higher seed than its current third seed in the MAC Tournament next week. But with so many quality teams at the top of the conference, Shondell isn't stressing himself over seedings.
"I think there's so much parity in the top four teams, I don't think it makes any difference whether you're seeded one through four," Shondell said. "Really, any of the top six teams I think could beat each other. We're where we need to be. It's just going to be the team that gets hot that weekend."
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