North Carolina State University Athletics
Sweet: The Season Has Begun
8/27/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Follow freshman Nikki Sweet's first year with the Wolfpack program each week via the NC State volleyball blog on GoPack.com. Nikki will keep fans up to speed on the latest happenings of the team; discussing practices, training, matches and much more.
RALEIGH, N.C. - This past Tuesday was our last day of preseason and luckily we had the morning off so we could collect our books and school supplies, and look for our classes around campus. With stress and nerves building because of school starting the next day, we made it through practice that night. The next morning most of us woke up around 7:30 and went to breakfast before our first class. It was so nerve racking walking to class. None of us knew what to expect, and it was weird to think that we probably wouldn't know anybody in our classes. As we approached our separate classes, however, we said our goodbyes and wished each other good luck on our first day of college.
The first day of school wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I had three classes over a three-hour period and all we did was talk about the class and get our class syllabi. The main thing that was really different from high school was that in three out of my four classes there were more than 200 students in them. I couldn't believe it when I walked into the auditoriums and saw all of those people! The other major difference is the fact that we have to keep up with all of our test dates and assignments without the professors reminding us. We have around four major tests, and these tests will make up the main parts of our grades. There is no busy work to fill in the gaps or help us raise our grades. Overall it seems all of us freshmen made it through the first two days of school ok, but we now realize what a challenge it is going to be to keep our grades up and remain focused on the court. We have eight hours of study hall a week, which will hopefully help us with our studies.
This past Friday we participated in our first tournament. It was a great experience and I'm happy to say that we are now 3-1 on the season. Our first match on Friday was against South Carolina State. We came out a bit shaky, as you might guess from nerves, but we settled down and won the match in three games. Later that day we played North Carolina Central University, and that was an awesome experience. We were the only teams playing in the gym and it was packed with fans from both teams. We went out there and took care of business in the first and second games, but then the third and fourth games were lost due to a breakdown in our passing and communication, which forced us into a fifth game. It was neck and neck the whole game and both teams played with competitiveness and intensity, but unfortunately we ended up losing in a hard fought game 15-13.
We didn't let that loss keep us down. The next day we stepped into the gym and took care of business by defeating both Campbell and Loyola College in four games. Overall the tournament was a great start to our season, and we will be traveling to Florida this Friday to resume play.
