Muncie, Ind. – The Ball State Women’s Volleyball team held their Senior Night, on Saturday as they celebrated players for their achievements on the court and in the classroom. Although emotions were high, head coach Kelli Miller Philips believed that the team kept their composure throughout the game despite the loss.
“Their ability to you know use emotion in a positive way and so of course there is gonna be emotion when it’s senior night just like there is gonna be emotion in the MAC tournament and just like there is emotion with anything that matters, and I think our group does a good job of having maturity about that,” said Coach Phillips.
Senior middle hitter Aayinde Smith has only been at Ball State for this season however, she believes that her time here has helped her improve as a player.
“I think I definitely developed greatly defensively as a player shoutout to Coach Tucker,” said Tucker. “I think I’ve definitely maximized my opportunities here defensively for sure.”
Smith believes that as the older player who has played volleyball at Townson University for four years, she should share some of her experiences with her younger teammates to hopefully help them on their journey.
“Looking at the younger girls as if they were me when I was younger and what I would have always wanted as a freshman, sophomore, junior and just kind of giving that motherly role to the girls,” said Smith.
Despite the loss to Western Michigan Coach Phillips believes that this loss will help the team in the long run as the team gets ready for tournament play.
“We played well there were just a couple of mistakes defensively that we just gave too many runs of points,” said Phillips. “I do think you know in the bigger picture it is going to be a good test a helpful match that we have under our belt experience-wise going into the MAC tournament.”
The Women’s Volleyball team's next match will be on Nov. 22 at 6:30 p.m. for the first round of the MAC tournament against the number six Toledo Rockets.
Contact Jalen Mckissic with comments at Jalen.mckissic@bsu.edu.
