Boeve's Blog: Week 12

Iowa State senior volleyball player Erin Boeve will be writing a weekly blog this season to give Cyclone fans an insiders look at the happenings of the program, which last year advanced to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in school history. Boeve, a middle blocker from Steen, Minn., became the first Cyclone to earn AVCA All-American Honorable Mention honors a year ago. She also was the first ISU volleyballer to be named first-team All-Big 12 and the league's Co-Defensive Player of the Year. A preseason All-Big 12 selection this year, Boeve is the school's record holder for career block assists and owns the top-two single seasons in school history as well.

October 29, 2007

Hello again to all of our fans! It seems as if I am always writing these blogs, but that is just because the time is going by so quickly. This week will already put us into the month of November, which seems crazy to me.

After a bye weekend last weekend, we were back in the gym on Monday to begin preparing for the second half of Big 12 play. This past Wednesday we played Texas Tech right here in Ames. It was so nice not to travel during the week like we have been for the past month. It was a nice little break from traveling! We ended up beating the Red Raiders in three games. The first game wasn't the prettiest, but then we were able to pull it together for the final two games. It was another great win for us as we need to continue beating the teams that are below us in the Big 12.

On Friday, it was time to travel again. This time it was to Manhattan, Kan., where we faced Kansas State. It was nice because we got to charter this trip, even though it was on a weekend. The flight was a short 45 minutes, so we were there in no time. As I forgot to mention last week, we have been having a little extra excitement on the charter flights as one of my teammates, Meghan Ferrie, assists the flight attendant in the safety procedures that need to be followed while on the plane. She got a lot of practice last week on our trip to Colorado, but this week her practice was put into action. Let me tell you, she nailed the seatbelt demonstration!

When Saturday rolled around, it was game time. We again went through the same game day routine with breakfast, film, practice, followed by a pre-game meal at Applebee's. We started off very slow against the Wildcats, but we were able to find our rhythm at the end of game one. The second game was very close the whole way, but we were not able to finish for the win. We came out really strong after the break and won the third game 30-20. It was a lot of fun to take them out of their game! The fourth game was also very close the whole way, but we ended up losing, 33-35. We played them a lot better than we did in Ames a couple weeks ago, but we did not play well enough for a long enough period of time in order to get the win. We were very disappointed in the loss, but this match also proved to us that we can play with a team that is ranked 15^th in the nation. We just need to believe that we can do it!