Dec. 6, 2005

When I arrived at Ohio University three years ago, we set some very high goals. One of the things we talked about as a team was reaching the Sweet 16 because we wanted it to be on their minds as not an impossibility. When you have a team that had finished no higher than fourth in 30 years of the conference, the concept of reaching the Sweet 16 is odd.

But we had some good kids here and I think the biggest thing we did that first year was working on the culture - our system, how we practiced, things like that. And then we got very fortunate in our recruiting that first year. We signed Savanah Parra, Michaele Blackburn and Jenna Gaughran right away very late in the game and all three of them have been huge. And ever since, we've been just very fortunate to get some great young women in here.

When I came here, the players were looking for something better and we hit the ground running right away. Each year, we've reached the goals we set for that year and we don't have a problem re-evaluating and setting new goals. Our goal now is getting to the Final Four. We came in on Monday and said, "All right, what are we going to do now?" because if you look at our regional, any one of those teams can make the Final Four. It's going to be an interesting mix of teams and we're definitely the outsider in the sense that none of those teams really know much about us and we like it that way. We like being mysterious.

One of the reasons we got to this point is that we have kids who believe in our system and who are competitive kids. They all started staying in Athens over the summer and I think that's huge. They like it and it's been important for our program. It's a fall sport so if you come in out of shape, you're in trouble and you're playing from behind from the very beginning. This group works hard and they want to be good. If they slip up, we talk about it and get after them and they respond. They're not always perfect - they're not angels - but they genuinely want to get better so they listen and learn.

Holly Schetzsle and Julia Winkfield do a great job as leaders. They're older - Julia is engaged and Holly is 23 - so they have some experience and they've been through a lot. They've been through a lot physically just to be where they are so they appreciate all this and I think it rubs off on our younger players. They don't take our success for granted.

We leave at 10:30 tomorrow morning for our trip to California and over the next few days, we'll have more journal entries from our players - starting with Julia and Holly. We hope you enjoy reading about Ohio Volleyball's first-ever trip to the Sweet 16 and we thank you very much for the outpouring of support you have shown us.

Go Bobcats!

Geoff Carlston