 Hello and welcome to the Dave Trumbo show presented by Buffalo Wildlings. I'm Greg Royston, my students at Head of Women's volleyball coach Dave Trumbo. Coach, since last time we've chatted, your team's really kind of hit their strides as we come down the home stretch here towards post-season. Yeah, Greg, I really couldn't be more pleased for our team. They've put in a lot of work. We've been through some tough times early in the season and they just seem like, you know, this time of year we always seem to play, start to play better and that's always our goal to play the best volleyball we can the end of October and putting together a nice little win streak against some, well actually the last three matches against teams that have gone to the NCAA tournament in 2017. So we're real pleased with the results and the girls are feeling very confident. Yeah, yeah, talking, you know, last few matches at home, you know, very solid wins at home, very hard fought matches. Obviously, as you prepare for the post-season, those are the types of matches that you want to play in order to get mentally prepared, you know, for not only the conference tournament, but hopefully, you know, after that as well. Yeah, and as we increase our level and the level of our intensity and, you know, like our efficiency, like we sided out Tuesday night at 70%. Well, the statistics say if you can side out at 62%, we side it out at 70 on Tuesday. We side out at 62%, we're going to win about 95% of the time we're going to win. So we were real pleased with that. You know, our passing was amazing. Sarah Regan and Katie Leffridge and Darian Heilman just did a great job and our setters were very efficient with the ball and our hitters getting the ball in position to be able to put the ball down and, you know, hitting 405 in the third set and 343 in the first set. So we're real pleased with that as well. Yeah, what's been the big difference? Is it just more kids as they get more playing time, get more comfortable playing in their new roles, that everything's sort of clicking and coming together for you at this point? I think the whole team is getting better. Yeah. All 18 people, so practices are cleaner. Yeah. They're just, the quality is better. Yeah. So when all 18 people are progressively getting better, then our practices are better and we take that confidence into the game. Yeah. And I think just people are feeling comfortable. I mean, I talk about Darian Heilman. I really think she's probably the unsung hero of our team this year. She's grading out as our best server and she's, you know, is our best passer. And now she's putting the ball down. So things that we had not known about her. Right. Because he really was a backup the last two years. So I'm very happy for Darian in the way she's playing. Yeah. And you touched on Darian, but obviously you look at any of the boxers lately and they're just incredible ballots. Tuesday night four girls had eight kills and Katie had 12 or 13. So it's not like other teams can key on just one or two people. Like there's five or six kids that can really hurt you at the net. Yeah. And that's because we were talking about that on the way over. A lot of teams will have one or two kids that can't put the ball down, but we have them at all six positions. Yeah. And I think, you know, another person to note is freshman Kenzie Blevins. Yeah. She has really come on in the last five to 10 matches where she's very dependable. She's putting up numbers on the board. She's setting up a good block. And so she's added that ingredient into our offense that we needed and our setters have a lot of confidence in her. Yeah. Just kind of look ahead just a little bit. Next Thursday, senior night against Hood. You have two seniors this year, Mariah and Chelsea. Just talk a little bit about them and what they've meant to the program over their four years. Well, I've known Mariah since she was in fifth grade. She went to Liberty Christian School. I was a teacher. She walked in the door. I had her in PE class and said, we got to make her a volleyball player. We saw how athletic she was. So here we are, you know, over 12 years later, and a two-time Honorable Mention All-American closing in on 1,000 kills. And she just provides so much energy for our team. And she's playing very well now, which makes her block better. She's a little bit more confident. And so she's really going to hint. I'm hoping that she ends her career on a high mark. And Chelsea Ireland came in as a freshman, fought for that position, did not play a lot as a freshman. Sophomore, you've won that job. And she's just getting better and better. You know, she hit 700 on Tuesday night. And she is somebody that is always there. She's not up. She's not down. She's very consistent. Emotionally, she's very consistent. And she's always there for our setters making runs to the net. I couldn't be happier. A nursing major, another nursing major that graduated, you know, and close to a 4.0 student. So what a credit to how hard she's worked and, you know, two great seniors. Yeah, absolutely. And obviously, kind of lost success here. I'm hoping for a little bit more. I do too. Yeah. All right. Well, for Dave Trembow, I'm Greg Royce. And this has been the Dave Trembow Show.