Staying positive can be difficult on the court when coming off a 1-4 stretch, an uncommon hurdle for the Ball State women's volleyball team.
It's something coach Steve Shondell demands from his player though, knowing his team is trying to reload after losing five starters from the 2011 roster.
"That's where your leadership comes in," Shondell said. "Their job is to keep the team together and keep them relaxed.
"It's just important when you are going through growing pains that you really stay together on the court, keep your chemistry and don't get down."
Negativity stemming from frustration on the team's play resulted in a meeting with senior outside hitter Kara Bates. Junior libero Catie Fredrich said Bates and senior transfer middle blocker Lisa Scott are who the team turns to initially when they need a lift emotionally.
"We just had to kind of talk about it over the weekend because we were having issues on the court but the upperclassmen stepped up to keep things positive on the court," Fredrich said.
Fredrich said the team's expectations for the season haven't changed - get to the NCAA tournament somehow.
"We got off to a rough start but we can only improve from here," she said. "We'll take it to them when conference season starts."
Ball State is 4-6 through its first 10 matches, but Shondell said he isn't worried about how his team has played because of its difficult non-conference schedule. He looks at it as a positive for the team and the program.
"We've really strengthened our schedule this year because we feel like we've reached the point in our program where we need to do that," he said. "We've gotten better every week and that's all you can do."
Shondell said the team's statistics reflect a better team then what the results have been so far. Ball State is fourth in opponent hitting percentage, second in assists per set and fourth in digs in the Mid-American Conference.
But Ball State has been the worst blocking team in the MAC and has been the second most blocked team in the conference. Shondell said those issues have been the result of not play smart.
"We've got to play smarter," he said. "We've got to hit smarter. We're going to see a lot better result from a win-loss standpoint once we start reducing our unforced errors, attacking the ball smarter and improving our discipline."
As the team works to try and string some wins together the key for Fredrich is communication.
"Watching film [and practice] is helping us learn," she said. "We're just going to have to come together and just communicate all the time. That's basically what our issues are."
MARSHALL HURT
Redshirt freshman outside hitter Marquita Marshall walked out of Worthen Arena on crutches with a brace on her knee.
Shondell said she re-injured it during the Northern Colorado Classic and he wasn't sure if she could play in the Ball State Tournament this weekend.
"They are doing some tests on her so we don't know the extent of it," Shondell said.
Marshall missed the first seven games of the season. It was her first weekend back from injury.
Marshall finished with seven kills against Creighton in her collegiate debut.
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