Aug. 18, 2009

Welcome to Along the Chisum Trail the 2009 Edition!!! Throughout the season you the fans will be hearing from head coach Karen Chisum and members of the Bobcat Volleyball team. They will give you a behind the scenes look into practices, matches and road trips.

Aug.18,2009- Head Coach Karen Chisum

I told my SID that I'd start the "Along the Chisum Trail" blog this season and then turn it over to my seniors. I'm sure most of you would prefer to hear from the players and not me.

The "kids" are here and the season is near, to say the least. Along with the Bobcat soccer and football players, cheerleaders and strutters the areas around the athletic department is in full buzz!

Sixteen players are with us now after the first 3 days. It's been the usual physical testing and position training along with alot of ball control drills. Initial praises go out to Ashley Emanuel, senior middle blocker and a newcomer, Matti Schumacher. Both have led us on the "Claw Credit" chart. "Claw Credits" are earned through the results of physical tests. Although we lack a couple of tests to date, they will be the leaders for "The Mauler" specialty shirts.

The preseason polls have the Bobcats picked to repeat as SLC champions. The respect is nice, but we all know that the polls are for the media and the fans. They mean absolutely nothing.....what matters is where you finish at the end of the season. I would say, however, that my staff and I enter this season "cautiously optimistic". Replacing the three four-year senior letterwinners off the 2008 squad will not be an easy task. The talent is here; it's the experience that is missing.

Our annual "Meet the Cats" is Monday, Aug 24th. We will have a full intersquad scrimmage from 5:30-7:00pm with player and coaches' introductions to follow. Refreshments will be served and the public is invited. That weekend, Aug 28-29, we will open up the season at the U of Missouri Classic with matches against Ole Miss, BYU, and the host Tigers. Our first home match will be Tuesday, Sept 2, vs Texas Tech.

I look forward to seeing you in the stands on the 24th and throughout the season. We finished 46th nationally in attendance last year and hope to surprass that in 2009. Join us for exciting action on the vollebyall court!

Ashley Emanuel

August 31, 2009 - Ashley Emanuel

After many weeks of intense two-a-day training, sore bodies and increasing excitement for our first match, game day finally approached us. This past weekend we headed to Columbia, Missouri for the Tiger Invitational. During the weekend we faced off against the Ole Miss Rebels, Missouri Tigers and BYU Cougars. We fought hard against all three teams, but among the most exciting was our match against MIzzou.

Sets 1, 2 and 3 were played with a lot of intensity going point for point each set. The crowd roared each time Mizzou came back at us with a kill or a block but the animosity of the crowd and the trash talking of the sideline fans fueled our motivation to earn the next point. After many close calls by the ref and intense celebrations, Mizzou ended up taking the match.

We left Missouri Saturday night looking ahead to our next match with clenched fist yearning to take care of business with our next opponent. We take on Texas Tech on Wednesday at 6:30pm. Our minds are ready for battle and our hearts are ready for a win, but most importantly were ready to rip the Red Raiders!

Jessica Weynand

September 9, 2009 - Jessica Weynand

Determined for our first win, we knew Wednesday night would be an exciting and successful night for us. With the help of 2,400 awesome fans and the fact of "being home," we defeated Texas Tech in three games. With heart and determination, we played great volleyball and the outcome was successful. Thank you to everyone who came out to support us and we hope to see you back!!

Our next goal was to prepare for the weekend in Wisconsin. Unfortunately, the weekend did not fall in our favor. The five-game thriller against Marquette was very competitive and exciting, but left us with an upset in the end. We went another five games with Austin Peay, but a slow start hurt us and left us unsuccessful. The last match against Butler did not go as planned and we fell to them in three. Despite going 0-3 in the tournament, Coach Chisum still wanted us to see the beautiful city of Chicago. On Sunday, we went downtown, walked the Navy Pier, shopped down Michigan street and enjoyed the "Windy City". After a day of sightseeing and relaxation, we came home Sunday night with the goal of working hard and preparing to win the upcoming games this week.

Brittany Collins

September 15, 2009 - Brittany Collins

Tuesday, September 8, was a quick trip up to Waco to play against the Baylor Bears. As we were getting ourselves ready for the match, we were impressed with the nice facility they had. We sat in our cramped locker room preparing for the match and the team decided no matter what we were going to fight until the end. We were going to "hold the rope" for every teammate. The match went fairly quickly with only three sets.

The loss on our record was another fire under our butts, as we came into practice through out last week. We were working harder than ever to get wins during the weekend. After a good practice on Wednesday and Thursday we were ready to face Texas Southern University and Hofstra on Friday.

The match versus TSU went well. We worked on a lot of things and won in three. Then that night we defeated Hofstra in four, while working hard on a quick offense and good defense.

On Saturday it was now time to play Texas A&M a much bigger rival for the Bobcats. We didn't play so well while A&M played very well, which led to our defeat in three sets. Our next opponent will be the University of Houston on Tuesday, Sept. 15. Let's claw the Cougars, as well as make the Cave family feud fall in favor of the Bobcats!

Ashley Emanuel

This week was a weekend full of good wins. We faced off against Houston, Tuesday night with contagious winning attitudes. Among the most pumped for the match was Melinda due to a good ole sibling rivarly matchup against her sister Kinsey Cave who was the other outside on Houston. We battled it out point for point and won in four games and left the gym with our shoulders high, the taste of victory in our mouths, and texas state pride on our minds.

This weekened we headed to SMU for the SMU invitational against SMU, William and Mary, and Syracuse. We started the weekend off with a pre practice in the gym Thursday evening, and I unfortunatly had to go and sprain my stupid ankle, yup sprain.. not rolled. Who sprains their ankle senior year? I guess me ofcourse :( But anyways, Friday afternoon we opened up with SMU. We played hard point for point and took SMU to 4 games. We almost pulled a win but couldnt seem to finish the job as they came back and won the match. Later on that evening we faced up against William and Mary and beat their butts in three. Another loss would have just been unacceptable and if there is one thing we hate more than anything, its losing. Sat morning we woke up hungry for breakfast and another win. We matched up against Syracuse and took advantage of our strenghts and beat them in 4 games. Overall we got 2nd in the tournament which was something we havent done in a while so it was a good feeling.

Later that night we headed to Fort Worth to see our boys face off against TCU. We scored three touchdowns overall against the #1 defense in the nation! I heard from a little birdie that TCU has not let anyone score that many points on them at home since 2007, so TEXAS STATE is well on its way to domination! Conference time is finally here and I cant believe it , but time is flying. Southland Conference watch out because here we come!!! GO STATE!!

Jessica Weynand

September 28, 2009 - Jessica Weynand

We had another exciting and successful weekend at home while opening up conference with Corpus Christi and UTSA. After all the pre-conference jitters and kinks were out, we beat Corpus 3-1 (20-25, 25-6, 25-20, 25-18). We came out very slow the first set which unfortunately, cost us set one. After we regrouped, it ended up being a great night .

Saturday was a very busy day for us. We hosted a free clinic to the public from 9-11 and roughly had about 50 kids. We had a great time working with the eager kids and every one of them received a free ticket to our match against UTSA that afternoon. Saturday was known as Legacy Weekend and was a big day for Coach Chisum. Past players, coaches, officials and alumni all joined us for lunch and supported us against UTSA. I think everyone had a blast reminiscing on the past and honoring Coach Chisum for her 30 years. Of course at 2pm, we played UTSA in the I-35 Rivalry match and won in three (25-23, 25-19, 31-29). The crowd was amazing and we focused in and put on a show for all our fans. With two conference wins under our belt, we are excited but not satisfied. We have a tough weekend ahead of us with Sam Houston on Thursday and Lamar on Saturday. Go Cats!

October 6, 2009 Brittany Collins

Brittany Collins

Then Saturday came and we were ready, or at least we thought we were. Normal pre-game meal, normal pre-game rituals in the locker room, and even pre-game warm up was great. We were ready, until that first whistle. It was like that whistle transformed us into a group of volleyball players that just couldn't play the game of volleyball. Nothing was going right for us, we passed balls over, served out, let balls just hit us, we were not completely there. Let's just say Saturday was not pretty, being swept by Lamar was not fun. The Texas State Bobcats are ready to work this week and figure out how to win in our Dig Pink game this Friday against UTA.

October 12, 2009 Jessica Weynand

Jessica Weynand

After a great week of practice, we were more than ready to play UT Arlington on Friday night. We came in full of energy and pride and swept UTA in three games (25-23,25-18,31-29). It was also our Dig Pink night so we were decked out in our pink to support breast cancer research. Everyone had on pink ribbons, pink sweatbands, pink shoelaces and even pink fingernails. Our crowd was great as usual, and it was great to see them in pink as well. Before the game, we held a silent auction with a bunch of great prizes to also donate to the Central Medical Treatment Center. Overall, it was an amazing night, but now it's time to focus on defeating Central Arkansas and Northwestern next.

Head coach Karen Chisum

October 19, 2009 - Head Coach Karen Chisum

It was an interesting week last week. With UCA rolling into town, I thought we were ready to go. We'd had a couple of good practices and I "felt good" going in to Wednesday night's match. Well, if you were there, you know what I'm about to say....we were totally out of sync the first two sets. NO one was clicking! It looked as though we had never played together at all. The third set began very similar....we were all but dead, had both feet in the grave....down 13-8. However, Matti Schumacher, freshman who has played sparingly, went in and really gave us a spark and along with setter Shelbi Irvin, we battled back to win both sets 3 and 4. The fifth and deciding set was close, but it didn't go our way. We dropped that set 15-12 and UCA remained undefeated in SLC play. It's one of those things that "I wish we could play them again" but that's the last time we will see UCA this season.. (They are still ineligible for post season play so they cannot participate in the conference tournament.)

We had a short practice on Friday afternoon and then loaded Star Shuttle's executive coach and were off to Natchitoches, La. We stopped in College Station for an early dinner, hoping to visit with President Obama but he never showed!!! :) After 3 movies on the bus, a nap, some reading, we arrived around 10:00 to check into the hotel. We had a good breakfast and watched video of our upcoming opponents and scurried off to the "airplane hanger" converted into a coliseum at Northwestern State. We won our first true road match of the season 3-1 and then back to San Marvelous we headed. The victory felt good (dang, I hate losing!!!!!) so the ride home was fun. Found out that the Bobcats won in Thiboduax so we were excited for them. And, of course, soccer won Friday night to extend their winning streak and remain undefeated in conference play. (Go Soccer!) ....Back to the bus and on to San Marvelous! We had satellite TV on the bus so it was college football all the way home!

This week we have Nicholls State in Strahan Coliseum at 6:30 on Thursday and Southeastern La Saturday afternoon at 2:00. If you can believe it, we are down to our last two homestands so please come out and support your Bobcats! See ya Thursday night.