The "I-69" rivalry hasn't been long lived for the Ball State women's volleyball team but in its short time, it's been one that Ball State has dominated.
Ball State holds a 10-3 all-time record against IPFW (2-1), who lost to Ball State last season in four sets at Worthen Arena.
With the state of the two teams, however, that might not matter.
Ball State (2-1) is traveling to Fort Wayne just two days after finishing the Ball State Active Ankle Challenge.
Ball State coach Steve Shondell said the quick turnaround, coupled with the team's inconsistent play over the weekend, has him wishing he would be seeing IPFW next weekend instead.
"I would rather not be playing until this weekend, where we would have a week to recover from this tournament and work on the things we need to work on," Shondell said. "We just learned a ton about our team this weekend."
IPFW beat Ball State during the spring schedule and returns all but one of it's players from 2011's 21-9 team.
Shondell said many teams opt not to play midweek matches, but it being a rivalry game forced the schedule to adjust to fit IPFW in the schedule.
Some of the things that have bothered Ball State has been chemistry between the team's setters and hitters. Ball State's attack percentage through three games is .196 versus 2011's .242.
Shondell said they were trying to work on it but it would take some time for the new lineup's to build chemistry.
Senior outside hitter Kara Bates said it was a primary focus in Monday's practice.
"That's our main focus," Shondell said. "I think that was blatantly obvious for us this weekend. It wasn't something we had really focused on in practice too much. That can't go on for too long if we want to be successful."
Bates said the team will have to be mentally tough coming off a weekend of games only to travel on two days of rest, especially after the starters played the vast majority of time in its first three games.
Though depth is a worry, Shondell isn't prepared to sacrifice wins right now to get some of his new faces more playing time.
"With a team such as ours that does have a lot of new players, I have to keep everything in perspective and try not to be over concerned with RPI this early in the season," Shondell said. "I do want to play a lot of people but not at the expense of letting the match slip away."
But some changes will occur right away. Shondell said he would start using senior defensive specialist Lauren Schlaker as the serving specialist against IPFW.
"She's worked her tail off the last couple of years," he said. "She's had a great positive attitude. She's evolved into one of our team leaders."
Shondell called this year's non-conference schedule the most difficult he's had in his three years as coach. The issue now is preparing a team replacing five starters from 2011 to competing for another NCAA tournament bid.
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