MATCH NOTES | LIVE STATS
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Morehead State's volleyball team is ready. Plain and simple, the Eagles are geared up for their first NCAA Tournament match Friday night against fifth national seed Purdue at Holloway Gym at 7:30 p.m. ET.
The Eagles went through a spirited hour-and-a-half practice on Purdue's Belin Court Thursday afternoon and then selected players spent some time talking with local media. All the Eagle student-athletes and coaches really agreed on one thing. Treat this like just another match and take the same prepartion methods as all 33 previous matches this year.
"We want be a little loose and just focus on our game," said head coach Jaime Gordon. "We really focused on just taking care of things on our side of the net. I think there may be a few jitters here and there, but for the most part, I think we had a nice practice."
"Really we just have to concentrate on the controllables and what we can do," said junior outside hitter Ellie Roberson." We can't really worry too much about what they (Purdue) can do. We have to visualize what we can do to win."
The Eagles have a tough task in trying to prepare for a Purdue team that boasts the Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year (Ariel Turner) and who has been to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen in 2005, 2006 and 2008. The Boilermakers are 27-4, ranked eighth in the nation by the AVCA poll, and are 15-1 at home in 2011.
"In pregame practice, we usually try to focus on what the other team's strengths are and how best we can defend that and how we can attack their weaknesses," said junior setter Caitlin Clark.
The Eagles will look to counter with the Ohio Valley Conference's best overall hitting team, top attacker in terms of kills (Roberson), the OVC Freshman of the Year (middle blocker Laura McDermott), the league's top setter (Clark) and arguably one of the region's top overall defensive players (sophomore libero Leslie Schellhaas).
The Eagles also have offensive threats in redshirt sophomore outside hitter Aryn Bohannon, senior utility player Liz Schuler and senior middle hitter Emma Keough, defensive prowess in junior middle blocker Annie Gruenschlaeger, and solid role players in Colbey Cameron (setter), Alex Fuelling (outside hitter), Lindsey Roth (defensive specialist) and Mikayla Reese (right side hitter/blocker).
"We've never been in this situation before so I am just treating it like any other game," said Schuler. "I am visualizing it just like the OVC championship. We prepared like it was any other match and we won. We're just expecting it to be a dogfight tomorrow. We're not going to give them anything but they're not going to give us anything either."
If the Eagles advance, they'll play the winner of the Ball State/Louisville match on Saturday at 7 p.m. ET.
