Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
Life on the Idaho State volleyball team consists of everything imaginable, except for free time.
Last weekend, the team left in the early hours of Thursday morning for a preseason tournament in Nashville. Once there, there was no time go to the Country Music Hall of Fame or post mindless snap stories of Cumberland River as it snakes its way through the heart of the city. This was a business trip.
“I wish there was a lot of play time, but traditionally, there isn’t,” said head coach Rick Reynolds.
The team landed Thursday afternoon, but instead of seeing the sites, they hit the gym for a short practice before, once again, getting up in the early morning hours on Friday for an 11:30 a.m. local time match against Middle Tennessee.
“We are elite athletes,” said senior Chloe Hirst. “Anytime, anywhere, we should be able to prepare for games.”
The Bengals finished with a 2-1 record during the Bruiser Showcase, beating Belmont and Middle Tennessee on Friday and losing to Texas-Arlington on Saturday afternoon.
Next weekend, the team will bus over eight hours to Colorado where they will play another three games in two days, once again, leaving early on a Thursday. The following weekend is only a four-hour trip to Boise.
“A travel day is a travel day,” Hirst said. “It’s just as important to remember to hydrate and fuel correctly on those days because those can take a toll on you if you are not aware of the schedule.”
A flight to Nashville is around three hours and 15 minutes. Combine that with the two-and-a-half hour bus ride to Salt Lake City airport, add about two hours to get through the airport and then double it to make a round trip, and the Bengals spent over 15 hours in travel time over the course of last weekend.
This weekend, will total around 16 hours as the team buses from Pocatello to Fort Collins.
On top of that, the way the tournament is set up, the Bengals play two games following a day of travel, which is not the case during conference play where Idaho State will play two games over the course of three days instead of ten hours.
“The biggest difference is we are eating breakfast for those games as opposed to eating dinner,” Hirst said. “You have to shift focus.”
This weekend, much like the others, the Bengals will have to play nationally recognized programs. The team will face Michigan at 10:00 a.m. on Friday and then will play Colorado State, a team receiving votes in the national polls, the following day at noon, after playing Ball State Friday night.
The following weekend, the team will play 2nd ranked Minnesota, a team who received two first-place votes in last week’s poll, in Boise.
“It’s exciting,” Hirst said on playing national powerhouses. “It is fun to go up against these nationally ranked teams and really see how well we can compete with them. It is a great way to prepare us for conference.”
The key to the fast-paced schedule and intense travel time, according to Hirst, is hydration. The team has also adopted foam rolling as a way to keep loose in-between games.
“You’re sweating in the morning, you get a chance to recover and then you sweat again,” Hirst said. “You need to make sure that you are doing those things to take care of your body so you’re just as fresh for the second game as you were for the first game.”
The quick turnover in games is an adjustment from the high school level. Although there are tournaments in youth volleyball, redshirt freshman Taylor Meeks says the schedule is more intense and concrete at the collegiate level.
“With tournaments in high school, you do your own thing,” Meeks explained. “In terms of food, you are on your own. Here, the coaches care what you eat.”
Reynolds reiterated the intensity of the itinerary, saying how most of the downtime the team does have is devoted to keeping up in classes.
“I would say it is a pretty intense schedule,” he said, adding that it’s rare to see a time when an athlete doesn’t use downtime to keep up in academics.
Hirst said that it is crucial for athletes to communicate with professors and get work in early, adding that it is also important to make a friend in class to keep them in the loop.
“We always emphasize that athletics isn’t an excuse for missing class,” Hirst explained. “We get to go to games, but we are still responsible for getting in all the work.”
Her coach sees it as another way to rise to an elite level.
“They are elite athletes, so why wouldn’t they be elite students,” Reynolds said. “They have evolved the ability to excel athletically, so the work ethic and the know-how to become an excellent athlete is there. We talk to them all the time, if you have that ability, you have the ability to focus and be an excellent student.”
