Splinters And Comebacks

After finishing the first half of the season 8-0, we had a full week of practice before heading to Loyola on Friday to start our second round through conference.

Where do we even begin?!?! We arrived and walked around for a while in confusion. They are under construction for their new gym, so our locker room and the training room was in the building that was undergoing construction, yet we had to play in a completely different building, and it was Loyola’s Recreational Gym. There was no locker room for us there, so we held our team meetings (before, during, and after the game) in the gym’s closet, which held most of the equipment (talk about hospitality). Evan even got a picture of us during our ‘focus time’ before the match, check it out.



We used the recreational facility's public bathroom to change into our uniforms for the game and then headed up the stairs to see what the gym was like. For some reason it took us by surprise. We had a while before serve and pass so we sat on their wooded bleachers trying to keep the splinters out of our butts. “The same carpenter that built Cleveland’s locker room must have put together these appalling, splinter threatening bleachers.” (Quoted by Lori Price—thanks!).

In these pictures you can see Morgan holding a ginormous splinter, and these horrifying bleachers. Why do people think that leaving wood like that is ok? At least sand or stain it!







While we were waiting to warm up there were many hard-working men trying to get the ‘gym’ suitable for a match. They were rolling up dividers and somehow a ginormous cooler of ice had clasped onto the bottom of one and dropped all over the floor. Thank goodness for towels and the custodian, not that we’d be surprised if they just left it there for the game. We ended up winning in four (yikes) and got the heck out of there.

The next morning we were supposed to get on the bus to go to Green Bay by 10:30. All of us were ready and waiting by 10:25 … then 10:30 rolled around … then 10:40 … finally by 10:50 the bus decided to show up. That 20 minutes of uncertainty definitely put Susie and Evan on edge, and nobody wanted to get in the way after that.

We made our way to Boston Market (aka thanksgiving feast fast food style) and got our food to go so that we could head to Green Bay without any more delays. We were all on the bus waiting for Susie and Evan to finish getting their food when out of nowhere, the bus shut off. Most people wouldn’t think this was a big deal but all we heard was the bus driver say “you’ve got to be kidding me,” and all of our faces dropped. What else could go wrong? She got it started up and it shut off again. Susie got onto the bus, counted us, and told the bus driver we were ready. All of us crossed our fingers as she turned the ignition, and the bus started right up and off we went.

We arrived in Green Bay and started off ... let’s just say bad. We were down 2 games to 0. Somehow we found ourselves within the third game and came back and won the match in 5.

Although the win wasn’t pretty and Susie was definitely a little off-kilter without her wing-woman Lindsey to calm her down, we are relieved to have Lindsey back with us. All our prayers are with her family during this time.

10 AND 0 WAY TO GO!!!!!

See ya’ll soooooon.

Biz and Anna aka Banna aka Aniz

A Weekend In Ohio

The VolleyBlog returns with insights from Anna Bartz and Elizabeth Egerer after a weekend road trip to Ohio

This past weekend the Panthers had matches against Cleveland and Youngstown State in Ohio. That’s an 8-10-hour drive - talk about horrible. Lucky for us we got to skip out on the whole long, annoying bus ride together and hop two 9-passenger baby planes for a traveling time of one and a half hours one-way. If that doesn’t scream spoiled, I do not know what does. The flight to Cleveland was nothing out of the ordinary as Susie was close to tossing her cookies and a couple of laughing attacks that ended in tears (happy tears of course because what other kind is there?)

Anywho, when we arrived to Cleveland’s mini-airport it was raining, as it would for the entire rest of the weekend. Inside the airport we ate the entire large bowl of lifesavers in the lobby while we waited for a shuttle. Numzers. We took a shuttle over to the Hilton Garden Inn (what a lovely place). On the shuttle ride, the driver told Susie and some of the girls about how many famous people had sat in that same passenger seat… including Justin Beaver and Justin Timberland just to name a few.

When we arrived to the hotel we immediately walked over to Subway to have a “snack,” aka dinner, aka a meal an hour before the pregame meal. Don’t worry, nobody was hurt in overstuffing their faces. After we ate at subway we had about an hour to jump on the beds and have a couple of pillow fights before we were on our way to the Winking Lizard restaurant for our pregame meal. There is actually a ginormous real live lizard in there, however the winking part was up for debate. Talk about false advertisement.

It wasn’t long before we were on our way to Cleveland’s gymnasium. Since it was raining out, Susie thought it would best to sprint up several stairs to get inside (skipping quite a few here and there to increase her PR). Turns out that was actually a horrible decision compared to just walking into the gym because she wiped out halfway up those concrete stairs, leaving her with a raspberry and a wet pair of jeans. Lucky for her, she saved herself from a broken wrist with the ability to roll out of the tumble like only a true volleyball player could.

Once we were all inside a nice man took us downstairs to our dungeon-like locker room, filled with plywood lockers that were only there just to give you slivers (they could have at least sanded or stained them). It didn’t matter that they tried to hold us hostage and injure our silky smooth hands because we came out and killed the Vikings (aka mid-evil hairy men aka definitely not volleyball-ers) in 3.

The next morning we woke up to a delicious Hilton breakfast. Man, they have EVERTYHING. The lady even split a waffle in half so you could eat a half stack of French Toast with it (that way we weren’t limited to choosing just one). After that we crammed into a 12-seat van like a bunch of clowns in a clown car and went to Youngstown to take care of some business. We looked kind of like slugs out on the court but managed to pack up the game in three and get out of there.

Before we headed to the airport we stopped at the classiest Taco Bell. Across the street there was a puppy store (AWESOME!!!!!) Apparently some of us were being a little too loud for the people in Taco Bell trying to have intimate, candle-lit conversations along with their dinner. Unfortunately for them, we don’t understand the whole intimate thing, so the older lady had to tell us “keep it down” three times. Apparently it is “frowned upon” to scream in public places. Who knew? Not us.

After we ate, we piled into the van and drove to the airport. A member of the team forgot what Taco Bell does to her digestion system and let one loose. We thought we would lose a few due to suffocation, but the driver and passenger were on it and had those windows down within seconds.

We finally got to the airport and some of us were lucky enough to use the GOVERNORS PLANE!!!!!!! AMAZING!!! Aside from some leftover peanuts, the plane was super clean. Well done Gov-na!

That’s all folks.

Ta-ta for now.

See ya Tuesday and Wednesday at our matches against UIC and Valpo.

-Biz and Anna, aka Banna aka Aniz

On The Road And Then Into The League

Juniors Anna Bartz and Elizabeth Egerer check in with the latest always-surprising and never dull edition of the VolleyBlog

The Panthers departed for Western Michigan last Monday night to prepare for their Tuesday game against the WMU Broncos.

After going down a road with about seven different hotels we arrived at the Clarion. It seemed like it wouldn’t be a bad hotel, but let’s just say it was definitely no Sheraton Inn. When we got to our rooms we found out that the Clarion’s pillows didn’t come close to the cloud-like pillows we had experienced so many times before at the Sheraton. It felt more like pillow cases stuffed full of cotton balls, basically something we’ve all made in our high school home economics classes. The beds from the Sheraton made you feel like you were sleeping on air, whereas the Clarion’s made you feel like you were sleeping on hard springs. It was hard not to shed a tear when you opened up the curtains and saw that the Holiday Inn was only a parking lot away.

We had practice at the gym the next afternoon. We wanted to get there early to get our gear on and get ready, but that campus was ginormous and finding the gym was like trying to find a four-leafed clover. We did finally find it and had about 10 minutes to get ready before practice. Then we made our way back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and got the heck out of there. It wasn’t long before we were preparing to play. We were trying a different lineup because of a couple of ankle injuries and a concussion caused by falling off a bed. We must have all had something wrong with our heads that night because the result wasn’t pretty and the Broncos beat us in three, leaving us running for the hills.

Then Friday and Saturday we had our first conference matches against Green Bay and then Loyola. We were lucky enough to be home again and have our own beds to sleep in. Plus the less contact we had with each other the better. Half the team finally figured out what the heck a Phoenix is - aka the magical bird from Harry Potter? They came thinking that they could ‘Wingardium Leviosa’ us, but that spell was the wrong one. We fought back with the ‘EXPECTO PATRONUM’ and took the Phoenix down in four.

The next day we were fed a Hogwarts type pre-game meal to get us witches ready to take down the Loyola Ramblers aka wolves aka moon-howlers. They weren’t a match for the Panthers and they crumbled in our teeth in our three (for the first win in three of the year).

We are preparing for our upcoming matches that everybody should be at this Friday at 7 and Saturday at 4.

I’m Ron Burgundy - Stay Classy Milwaukee

Special Thanks to Morgan Potter (aka Porgan Motter aka MoPo aka PP aka best libero ever) for helping us with this weeks blog!

-Anna and Biz aka Aniz aka Banna

Milwaukee/Marquette Invitational

Juniors Anna Bartz and Elizabeth Egerer are providing special insights (and more) on this year's VolleyBlog

This past weekend, we were lucky enough to have a tournament that required zero traveling. It was a nice ‘break’ since the last thing that we wanted to do was be with each other for an extra two days on a bus.

We started the week off on Tuesday before our NIU match by recruiting people to come to our game. We split ourselves up into strategically-assigned groups according to personalities to reel people in to come to the games. A group of us were at Sandburg and lured aimlessly wandering freshmen by pawning off flyers onto them and other unsuspecting victims. It was always a treat to have someone say “yes, of course we will come to the game” as they crumpled up the flyers that we worked so hard on right in front of our faces (you know who you are).

Another group of girls were at the Klotsche, and may or may not have consisted of one of the writers of this blog. She decided to go the extra mile (literally) and hopped onto an open elliptical next to a guy taken slightly off-guard and proceeded to elliptical with him until he agreed to come to the match. Strangely enough, we couldn’t find the extremely fit Waldo in the crowd.

Another group was located on Downer Avenue, mostly because the least amount of people walk there. We were afraid to place some of these angry Panthers on a more populated street where they might possibly be denied. One poor fellow shook his head ‘no’ to a Panther handing out flyers, and it did not go over well.

It turns out the hard work and determination to get fans at the match paid off, with nearly 1000 fans there! (Quite a difference to the 10 we had in previous years). Unfortunately, they saw a terrorized Panther as the Huskies defeated them in three.

We started the tournament off on Friday against the Akron Zips. We just Googled what a ‘Zip’ is. Apparently it’s a kangaroo. Who knew? Well we didn’t, that’s for sure. Regardless, we ate some ‘Roos’ aka ‘Joey’s’ up in four.

After the match we dined by candlelight (aka sunlight) and flowers (aka weeds) and bees (aka real live stinging bees) in the park--how romantic. Our five-star lunch/supper (aka lupper) consisted of Sloppy Joe’s and chips and about 17 desserts. There’s nothing better than eating four pieces of every dessert (cookies, skotcharoos, caramel bars and cream puffs, just to name a few) until about 20 minutes later when our stomachs hated us. Because we had to play again in about an hour, using the facilities just was not an option. So we held our butt cheeks tight and actually appreciated that PantherFest stole most of our fans so they couldn’t smell the gas coming from the gym. We played the Southern Miss Golden Eagles and our pungent odor knocked ‘em out in four.

The next day we were all ready to play the Marquette Golden Eagles. Not to mention any names…but in preparation we played ‘horsey’ around the gym, minutes before serve and pass. Apparently that wasn’t the best idea because the Golden Eagles swooped down on us in three.

WELL GET EM NEXT TIME. I’m Veronica Corningstone and thanks for stopping by…. You stay classy MILWAUKEE.

-- Biz and Anna aka Banna aka Aniz

Winning (and more) In Iowa

Juniors Anna Bartz and Elizabeth "Biz" Egerer have graciously agreed to be regular contributors to this year's VolleyBlog. Here is their first entry, completed on the bus somewhere between Des Moines and Milwaukee.

The journey all the way to West Des Moines turned out to be worth the six long hours on a bus full of PMSing girls. On our way, we stopped at a very fancy Panera Bread smack dab in the middle of a mall with an ice rink in it (now that’s first class!). The Panera was delicious, especially the 500+-calorie practically fun-size mac n’ cheese. When we finally arrived to the world-class Sheraton Inn, a ginormous waterfall greeted us - talk about spoiled. Then we got some news; we would be having a pool workout in 20 minutes! This came as a shock to the Panthers; it wasn’t even listed on the itinerary! But like the hard-working team we are, we pushed through that pool workout with almost no one stepping in the green (we’ll call it fungus) growing in each corner of the pool.

The next morning, all of us were weary at the fact that, because we didn’t bring enough spandex for the pool workout, we had wet bottoms for practice. No one likes wet bottoms and it definitely doesn’t help with the whole chafing situation. We hiked our way to McDonald’s, crossing a treacherous divided highway, but we all seemed to make it out alive.

Later that day we had our first match against the Wyoming “Cowgirls,” or so they refer to themselves as. There was nothing quite like watching them shoot off their guns as they were announced. After a few yellow cards thrown to the same “Cowgirl” twice, we lassoed the ‘W’ in four games.

The next morning came too early, as we awoke before the rooster on the farm next door. We ate a delicious Sheraton breakfast alongside the pee-wee Patriots football team, who decided to take a break from an intense duck-duck-goose game to finally fill their empty bellies. We made our way to the gym, where we played our first match against the IPFW Mastodons (aka extinct elephants aka elephants with horns). They were scrappy, yes, but we persevered through the jungle being the Panthers that we are, and we ate those Mastodons up in four.

We watched the next match to scout the Drake Bulldogs. After that match, we went shopping at a nice mall because that’s what girls do (plus, aside from cow tipping, it seemed like the next best option). We ate at Champps (mmm-mmm good) and then made our way back to the gym to take care of some unfinished business.

We came paws forward and claws out and took those poor Bulldogs down in four. We were tournament champions, and special congratulations to Kerri Schuh for receiving MVP, and Rachel Neuberger and Morgan Potter for being on the All-Tournament Team!

Go Panthers!!!

-Biz and Anna (aka Banna aka Aniz)

Alumni On The Sidelines

The 2011 edition of the VolleyBlog will include a variety of features, including extra news and notes, player and coach insights, videos and more.

I thought the place to start this year was to put together a list of Panther volleyball alums who also got their seasons started this past weekend as collegiate head or assistant coaches.

This is, of course, in addition to UWM alum Lindsey Vanden Berg continuing to hold down her spot on the Panther bench as an assistant coach to Susie Johnson. Vanden Berg, who was Lindsey Spoden when she played in Milwaukee, was an All-American in 2003.

Julie Yankus received a big promotion this past off-season, moving from an associate head coach role at Southern Illinois to the position of head coach at Southeast Missouri State. She had been at SIU for the past five years and was at Georgia State for two seasons before that.

Yankus played at UWM from 1998-2001, playing on four NCAA Tournament teams.

Melissa (David) Emkes will be starting her second season as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Bradley. She had previously been an assistant coach at Western Illinois and also spent two seasons as a volunteer assistant at Illinois.

Emkes earned all-league and all-league tournament honors at UWM as a senior, when the Panthers advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The Panthers won four regular season league titles and nearly 76 percent of their matches overall during Emkes’ collegiate career.

Trudy Vande Berg is back as an assistant coach at Iowa State this season. She also serves as the recruiting coordinator and assists in coaching the middle blockers. Vande Berg has also been an assistant coach at Duke and North Florida.

At UWM, Vande Berg set school records for blocks in a match and was the career leader in blocks until this past season. She played for the Panthers from 1994-97.

Meanwhile, former Panther standout Leanne Felsing is working for former Panther assistant coach (and baseball star) Matt Houk at South Dakota.

Felsing is entering her third season at USD and her first as the top assistant. She played at UWM from 2004-07 and put together one of the best all-around seasons in UWM history as a senior. She led the nation in triple-doubles while earning AVCA All-Region and honorable mention All-America honors for a second-straight season. Felsing finished her career with 1,146 kills, 1,329 digs and 2,264 assists while also helping the Panthers to four regular season league titles.

Her extensive list of honors also included League Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year recognition in addition to a pair of national player of the week honors. She also excelled in the classroom, earning ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District and Horizon League All-Academic Team nods.

Meanwhile, Houk is in his fourth season as the head coach at USD. He assisted the Panthers in 2002 and 2003. As a student on the diamond, he played in 104 games, batting .342 with 58 runs batted in and 30 stolen bases. He was recently named to UWM’s 20th-Anniversary Team.

There are also two other former Panther assistants – and graduates – who are currently leading Division I programs in the Mid-American Conference. Ryan Theis is the head coach at Ohio University and has led the Bobcats to three-straight NCAA Tournaments. Erik Olson is in his eighth season as the head coach at Central Michigan.

A Lot To Be Thankful For

Two weekends ago, the Panther volleyball team finished the regular season with a sweep at the conference tournament. This outcome was unbelievable for our team, which started the season off with way more losses than wins.

With the wins at the conference tournament against Green Bay, Valparaiso, and Cleveland State, you would think we would be shocked and surprised to have won it all. But no, our team was completely composed the whole time, knowing we were going to win and advance on to the NCAA tournament. We are all so thankful for each other for the support that we give and receive from each teammate every day to make this conference tournament possible.

Another thing that every person on our team is thankful for is that our coaches let us have three days off for the Thanksgiving holiday. You will not find many other coaches that are as compassionate and caring as ours. To let us have those days with our families and to let our bodies recover was awesome. Thank you from the whole team!

Lastly, we are thankful that we are still playing. For the second year in a row, we’re the only Division 1 team from Wisconsin that is advancing to the NCAA tournament. As other teams are finished practicing, we still get the opportunity to compete with the top teams in the country.

The team, coaches and lovely people that support us all went to Fratellos restaurant on Sunday to watch the NCAA selection show for the upcoming tournament. We got a more respectful seed than ever before and will be playing Dayton Thursday at 4:30 pm. Thankfully, we did not get seeded against No. 1 ranked Penn State!