Under The Radar: A Redshirt Diary

The Task At Hand

December 2, 2021

Wednesday's start of the volleyball team's truncated exam week went well, as there were no absences at any of the three scheduled periods that day. In the Convocation Center, the three visiting teams held their walk-throughs as Nick moved around the facility doing interviews with the coaches and players of note to provide material for ESPN's announcers, Tyler Denning and Jenny Hazelwood, to utilize during their broadcasts of the pod's three matches.

Lauren chose to make the Dukes' walk-through time open to the public, which drew several school groups, numerous faculty and staff members of JMU, and players and coaches from a couple of the local volleyball clubs. The coaching staff ran the team through a handful of drills before moving onto a series of mini-sets with the players in various starting rotations as Lauren evaluated the effectiveness of each one and who she would place in which positions Thursday night. Following practice, the players gathered behind the scorer's table and those in the stands were invited to come down to the floor to meet the team and get a few autographs.

***

Game day morning brought some expected and unexpected news to Lauren and Marc. First was Alden's official commitment to JMU to go with her application for admission to the Sport and Recreation Leadership program. By the middle of the day, Julia and Savanah had been registered in the Transfer Portal by Compliance. Their eventual departure was canceled out by a surprise announcement on the CollegeVBTransfers Instagram page that Alexandra Kwasnik, a second-year middle blocker at the University of Cincinnati, had decided to leave the Bearcats for James Madison, where she planned to compete in track and field as well. Following the conclusion of the 12:30 exam period, Marc grabbed a chocolate shake from Steak N Shake in D Hall before driving over to the Convocation Center for the first match of today's volleyball doubleheader.

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Tyler Denning (play-by-play): From the JMU Convocation Center in Harrisonburg, VA, ESPN+ presents an opening-round match in the 2021 NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament, featuring the Hawaii Rainbow Wahines and the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Good afternoon, I'm Tyler Denning alongside former Mississippi State volleyball coach Jenny Hazelwood. Jenny, when the bracket came out on Sunday night, I'm sure neither of these teams expected to be assigned to the pod being hosted by 29-2 James Madison, but here we are. In your opinion, would the winner of this match have essentially one foot into the regional semifinal and an expected matchup against Pittsburgh next Thursday?

Jenny Hazelwood: Both teams come into this first-round encounter having to overcome significant distractions. For Texas Tech, their 7-9 record in the Big XII along with a 17-12 record on the regular season made them a questionable selection for an at-large berth and the recipients of some heated social media comments from teams that felt they were more deserving of entry. On the other hand, Hawaii's travel schedule just to get to Harrisonburg was more arduous than could have been imagined after learning of their opening-weekend destination, having to leave Honolulu at Midnight on Tuesday morning and not arriving into town until 7pm that evening. Therefore, I don't think either of them would be a lock-on favorite over a JMU side who has been home since November 14th and held their final six practices on the newly-laid floor in this building.

The first set got underway with the Red Raiders using their fresher legs and minds to jump out to a 8-3 lead, but Hawaii strung together two good rotations to reverse the advantage and go up, 10-9, before losing serve on a ball into the net. The two teams battled back and forth the remainder of the way and the set headed into extra points, with Texas Tech prevailing by a score of 29-27.

As the second set started, Sarah received a FaceTime request from Dana Rettke, which she accepted immediately.

Sarah: DANA!