Blog: Seattle/Portland Trip - Sept. 8  (by Stephanie Augustavo)

After coming off a big home tournament victory, we had a lot of things to work on. This week of practices was short because we were leaving Wednesday morning for the west coast. After some successful practices we loaded up the Bull Runner on Wednesday and made the journey to the airport. This was our first traveling weekend as a team so we were all excited to dress up and look cute for the occasion, which everyone did.  On the very long plane ride people spent their time sleeping, playing suduko, listening to music or doing school work. As we were flying people were shocked to see snow, mountains and the very different scenery the Northwest has to offer.

Once we landed in Seattle, we ate and headed back to the hotel. This weekend was very exciting for me because I got to go my hometown and see all my family. On Wednesday my oldest sister had a baby girl, so I was very excited to see her! After a good night sleep and some delicious morning coffee we headed to the gym for the day. We had a short practice, then my mom and the Seattle University parents were nice enough to put together a luncheon out in the grass for the two teams. The food was delicious and it was nice to spend time with my teammates and family at the same time.  At four, we played Seattle and won in three sets. It was really fun to play against my younger sister and in front of my family in friends.

Next we loaded the bus and drove about three and a half hours to Portland, Oregon for a tournament. The bus ride was long, but we had a movie to entertain us, not to mention people were very tired so the majority of people slept.  Once we got to the hotel we went straight to bed because we had a big weekend ahead of us. Although we did not win this weekend, we played very good competition and learned a lot about ourselves. We challenged very good teams, yet we could not finish. We walked away from this tournament very disappointed in ourselves, but we are ready to learn from the past and work hard to ensure such things won't happen again.  Although this weekend was not successful I think it gave us the opportunity to see that we can compete with any team in the country.

After a long weekend thousands of miles away from Tampa, we headed back to the Southeastern United States. With little time off, the Bulls volleyball team got back into the gym focused and ready to get better for the future. 

Go BULLS!!

-Augie #1        

August 31, 2008  (by Brittany Castelamare)

            After two weeks of long days and hard work, we were ready to begin our season.  Thankfully, Claire gave us Monday off of practice to get settled into our classes and let our bodies rest a bit before we get back in the gym again.  While most of us had an easy first day of classes, Alli O'Connor couldn't say the same.  Alli gave "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" a whole new meaning.  Alli found herself not matching, without contacts, and in the wrong classes.  At least she has a good story to tell people when they ask about her first day of college! 

            Throughout the rest of the week we prepared ourselves for our first home tournament that weekend where we would play Grambling State University, Eastern Kentucky University and Northeastern University.  Practices that week got progressively better and better until we were mentally and physically ready to dominate.  After Wednesday's practice, the coaches surprised us with new NEON “GAME DAY” t-shirts!  We were so grateful and extremely excited to wear them on Friday.  Not only did the t-shirts make us look tan, but their brightness grabbed all of the students' attention as we passed, which helped us get more fans to our match. 

            Finally, it was game day; the opening match that would let us put all of our hard work together and see what we could do.  We ate at Jason's Deli then went back into the locker room to relax as the anticipation killed us.  Our fans poured into the Corral one after another until we accumulated an astounding 1,178 fans, which is the most people we've ever had at a volleyball match in school history!  As usual, we put on an awesome show for our fans as we swept Grambling 3-0. 

            The next morning we ate at our favorite breakfast stop, First Watch.  After coffee and carbohydrate overload, we made our way to the Corral to get ready for our 1:00 match.  Again, we watched in amazement as the fans accumulated until people could no longer fit in the stands.  We dominated Eastern Kentucky in three and were pumped for the 7:00 championship match against Northeastern.  Just for the record, our team hitting percentage in that match was an astonishing .554, just shy of the school record.  Ladies and gentlemen, this group is making history.

            After lunch, everyone grabbed a spot on the ground in the locker room and cuddled up to one another as we watched a movie and relaxed.  We're adorable.

            Game time was finally here.  We knew this match would be the toughest of the three, and we were pumped and ready to go.  We came out a bit slow and ended up 1-1 while we made our way into the locker room.  After a pep talk and a little team motivation, we got our heads back on straight and ran out ready to take over.  Needless to say, we did just that.  Our intensity was evident as we fed off of each other's energy throughout the rest of the match.  I'm so proud of us!  Now that our first tournament jitters are out, we are ready to dominate the rest of our preseason play, and then the Big East. 

CAN YOU FEEL IT???!

Brittany Castelamare

PRE- SEASON 2008:  (by Cynthia Danthon)

August 8, 2008:

The pre-season starts and everyone is excited about our first team meeting of the 2008 season. We all met in the Big East Room at 10 am with our positive attitudes and our smiles. Our first day was pretty intense; we met a lot people from administration, our strength coaches and our new trainer Jessica. Claire distributed our “player's manual” planner that has a lot of information, like our schedule, nutrition information, discipline policy, important dates and player contact information. Then, around noon we ate food from Boston Market in the Big East Room. At the end of our meeting, we all went to the locker room for the most exciting part. We received our new equipment: new shoes, new gear, new bags......We called that “Christmas Day”. After we got our Christmas presents, we came back home. Then , we went to eat dinner at a restaurant.

 August 9, 2008:

We had our testing weights at 8 in morning. The testing took the entire morning. We were pretty tired after the morning session, but we will have fun during the afternoon session. We will have our first volleyball practice in the lower REC center. Everyone was excited to play together. It was very competitive for a first day of pre-season. Our new freshmen did an awesome job. The whole team is ready for the rest of pre-season and to have a great regular season. It was a great first day of pre-season. We will practice everyday, twice a day, until August 24.

 August 13, 2008

Claire gives us a little break from the gym. We had a DISC profiling afternoon in the Big East Room. A few weeks earlier, we went to our coaches' office to take a personality test. It was time to learn more about our own behavioral tendencies and how these styles may have an impact our playing style and on others. It is very important to understand who we are but also to know with whom we play. We cannot deal with a problem or conflict in the same way. We all have different characters and personalities. We have to be able to understand, and appreciate the individual differences. “If I know more about you, I can improve how we work together.”, “people do things for their reasons, not yours.” Explained Amy, our guest speaker. She told us about the different types of behavior. She used the DISC model, which has four different categories: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. Each is symbolized by an animal and has certain qualities.( lion: competitive, fast paced; dolphin: interpersonal, optimistic, enthusiastic, independent; St Bernard: patient, project-oriented, good listener; and beaver: detail-oriented, accurate, high standards). This meeting was very successful and very interesting. We learned more about each other including our coaches. Thank you very much. It was a great afternoon. I loved it.

 August 16, 2008

Every season, we have a surprise. We have a team outing and every year, it is a real surprise. Last year we went paintballing. We did not have a clue what kind of outing we would have. The only clues that our coaches gave us were a sheet a paper with different items to bring, like glasses, swim suit, magazine, sun block, pants, flip-flops, a flash light.... what it could be? Some players thought about visiting a cave, lol, or swim at Adventure Island. After driving half an hour, we arrived at the USF St. Pete campus waterfront park and participated in a “learn to sail” program. Some people had never sailed before, and some others were already professionals like Mollie Echols. Before going sailing, we had to pass a swimming test in the pool. We showed our swimming skills, I'm pretty sure that we can compete against Michael Phelps. For sure. hahahaha.

It was time for us to go on the boat; we learned very quickly how to sail. We learned how to flip in the water on purpose, and then go back on the boat with your partners. It was very funny, but a little bit scary. I got stuck under the sail, under the water. After a few hours, we went sailing in the Gulf. For some of us, it took us a lot of time to get to the Gulf, but we all made it. We took a break and saw a baby shark and some dolphins .It was an amazing day. Thank you, coaches.

August 20, 2008

We had practice in the morning, and then another team outing at the Big East Room. The only clue that we had was” being dressed up”. We arrive at the Big East room and saw a woman well-dressed and a very nice table. Some white etiquette tags with our names were on the table.  Tia Young was our guest speaker. She is the founder and the director of Tampa Etiquette Academy. She brings back the lost art of good manners, which have vanished from our society today. During that afternoon, she taught us how to behave during a dinner. It was a very interesting day. Mollie, Mariana, Alli O'Connor and Allie Boaz went to the Marshall center to sign posters and promote our games. Thanks, girls.

August 23, 2008

We had practice in the morning, and then we had an intrasquad scrimmage between the green team and the white team. The green team was Britt, Allie Arbogast, Christine, Jarka, Kelsey, Michelle, with Carlos coaching . The white team which included Mariana, Nakia, Marcela, Allie Boaz, Alli O'Connor, Caitlyn, Rachel, and coached by Nikki. We had many supporters come to our scrimmage. The game was very competitive and challenging. The white team beat the green team 3-1.It was a great experience to play with Michelle.

August 24, 2008


We had our student- athlete welcome back event.  Every USF athlete met at 3 pm in the parking lot of the Sun Dome. Every athlete had a black USF shirt. On the front of a shirt was “ WE” made up of every student athlete's name. It was pretty cool. Some of us spent 30 minutes to find our names. Hahaha. We took a bus to get to Busch Gardens. A game was prepared for us. The mission was to get to know each other. Everyone had a card with some questions on it about the park, and some questions about athletes. We had to find someone who is shorter than 5 feet. Sorry Rachel Matos, she was pursued by everyone, hahaha. Other questions were finding an athlete who does not own a car and someone who has a tattoo . If you find someone who matched a description, they had to sign the card. The team who collected most signatures would win. Afterwards, we went to ride some roller coasters. Personnally, I could not ride the big roller coaster Sheikra. This roller coaster made me sick just looking at it, but Nakia loved it. I preferred to wait for her at the entry. I was not brave enough. At the end of the day, around 7 pm, every athlete met at the restaurant inside Busch Gardens. We had a very good meal and listened to a speech from important people from the Athletics Department. We had the best welcome back ever, the others Universities will be jealous.

 

GO BULLS.............