Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to another episode of in the Nest.
I am not Shane and this is not Matthew.
They are traveling at the moment, but I'm excited. I'm Eric Raspussen.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: This is Coach Meg Megan Bailey.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Coach. Meg megan. The primary reason we brought you on today, actually, is we need an expert on this Taylor Swift Travis Kelsey stuff.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: I am not the expert because I am not a swiftie. I need to clarify that right here and now. Matthew and Shane. Not a swiftie. If anybody's a Swiftie in this room.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: You just hang out with Swifties. But you're not a Swiftie. I'm surrounded by them.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: One of my best friends is Swifty, like hardcore die hard. It's okay. I can appreciate it. I can appreciate her. Can appreciate the amazing musician that she is.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: So you're not the one to go to about, like, is this relationship real? Is it a PR stunt? It's not you.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: I mean, typically not. I love football. I'll talk football.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: You'd rather talk Travis Kelsey than talk?
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Well, that's not the reason. When we found out Matt and Shane were going to be able to be here today, we're trying to figure out, hey, who's going to host and everything. And the real reason I wanted you to come on is because this volleyball team is just amazing. And we have Coach Hannah. Come on, matt interviews her last week. You listened to the interview?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: I did every word.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: And she does a great job.
And then right after the interview, you guys just go on this three games in a row of just really incredible wins, and it's like, great, great interview, but we can get her to comment on that. So now we've got the assistant coach, right? And I'm excited to just hear your thoughts in this last week, on this team and this season and how you guys winless. Last year.
Didn't get to go to the tournament at the end because you're just suffering from injuries compared to this year, where you guys are having success and building a team culture. Team culture is being built last year, obviously, but just absolutely all of that. And now to kind of see it all come to fruition in beating some ranked teams, which is awesome.
I want to talk through the games specifically, but in the last week, you beat Grace yes. At Grace, which is Michigan Saturday. You beat Moody. When was that?
[00:02:39] Speaker B: The night before friday night.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Was that in Chicago?
[00:02:41] Speaker B: It was in Chicago.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Okay. And then you beat Faith at home last night.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Yes. Exciting.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Tuesday night, two of those teams were ranked, right? Is that correct?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: So we have let's see, faith was ranked 6th in the coaches poll this past week. And we had Grace ranked at number ten at the coaches poll.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Okay. And you guys were not ranked.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: We were not.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: And you're not receiving any votes.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Nothing. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Nothing.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: So we'll have to see if that changes and fingers crossed, we'll see. Yeah, but two wins against ranked opponents this week, in the last week, that's awesome. Just talk me through what that's like as a team with your group. Were you guys expecting this? Not expecting this? What's going on there?
[00:03:23] Speaker B: I mean, in some ways totally unexpected, but in other ways we knew we could do it.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: I mean, we're watching this team. We're watching this as we came in preseason and had expectations, sure, but not super high expectations. You're like, you know what, we're going to set this ground level of? We're sticking with our three components of our culture that we've set the Christ centered, committed, competitive, and we're sticking with that. Right? So this year, we had a great Christ centered year last year and really, really pushed that. That was our main goal. Still had those committed and competitive pieces, but that was like, focus in on that, hone that, get this built up so that when we come in this year, have that built, we have that foundation set where it's really like, we are Christ centered. And when we say it, we mean it. And now we can start adding those committed and competitive piece is on top of that. And we've got the girls that are bought into it that want to invest in that. So this year it's just kind of a, let's take that next step, let's see what we can invest, let's see how we can grow. And obviously we're seeing that fruition come to fruition. I mean, we're seeing those wins come through with big ranked teams like Grace, like Faith. We're seeing that through other play where we wouldn't necessarily expect to be doing this or this, but it's coming out, it's showing up. We're excited about it too. So, yeah, it's building on top of each other. And I think we had expectations to do well, but we didn't necessarily have the, this is what we're going to do. This is the expectation. We must meet this. Otherwise it's a failure of a season. Right now. It's just kind of a, hey, if we stay Christ centered, we stay committed to learning more about God's Word while we're Adamaeus, learning more about each other and committed to our team, committed to growing as people and as disciples of Christ. And then we had that competitive piece that's expectations met for me right there.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: So I'll be the first to admit, I am pretty clueless when it comes to volleyball. It's a super exciting sport. I loved when we were students here and I got to watch.
I love the atmosphere. We get a ton of fans for volleyball games. All that stuff is great when it comes to obviously soccer, coaching, soccer, but sports like basketball, maybe even football and things like that, I can understand, hey, teams are trying to do this or they're really good at this thing or that thing. I have no clue when it comes to volleyball. So maybe I'm sure there's probably listeners out there that feel the same way, right? Yeah. I'm sure, unlike most people, have experiences playing baseball or basketball, especially guys. A lot of guys grew up without much 7th grade PE or something. I played the one week of volleyball, and that's about it.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Go out and hoop. Yeah. You know?
[00:06:03] Speaker A: And so what are some of the things that this team volleyball, specific things that this team is doing well that's leading to success?
[00:06:11] Speaker B: That's a good question.
I think it's really just those day by day stepping in with a new mindset. I think our mindset has really been, like, either the winner or the killer for us in any set, truly. I guess set by set, not even by the whole match. So it's just been like a mindset thing of are we going to come in and be winners today, or are we just not going to show up? It's got to be the full decision of day by day. I am going to make the decision to eat well, to fuel my body well, to sleep, to engage in healthy relationships with other people, and then that kind of carries into, well, are we going to play today? Then? Are we going to show up to the gym ready to compete and compete with good attitudes? Not just the I'm here to compete, because there's differences in that, too. I think you see that, you know, it absolutely showing up with that humble spirit of I'm here to compete. I'm here to glorify Christ, but I'm.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Here to compete, too.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: So it's a lot of mindset.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Let's let's talk moody was the first game of these three. Is that right? Let's talk about the Moody game. You weren't actually there. You had a weding.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: I wasn't there. I was at a wedding. I missed being there. I pulled it out in between the ceremony and the reception.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: Were you just attending the wedding, or were you a bridesmaid?
[00:07:31] Speaker B: I was the maid of honor.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Probably couldn't be sneaking your phone while the ceremony is going. That's not a good idea.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Probably not the best look front and center, just kind of looking down there.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: But probably I'm sure there are plenty of guys that have tried to pull that before.
[00:07:45] Speaker B: You know what?
[00:07:46] Speaker A: I'd imagine so, guys, you wear slacks with easier yeah. Pockets in your pants, probably. No pockets.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: Not with a silk dress. It's just not going to tuck in there very nicely.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: But I'm sure you've watched the Moody game now, right? Is that a little bit yeah. And your conversations with Coach Hannah, what went well? Talk us through that game.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think there was a lot of parts that we came through, we fought through, and there was a lot of growing moments through that match. We had already seen them at home a couple weeks ago. I don't even know, like, two weeks ago or so so now it was kind of like, okay, we've seen them before. Can we come back and compete again? Because we beat them before at home. So we wanted to see if we can just step it up a notch. And I think we played pretty evenly with what we did before. I think there's parts where we still are seeing that there's room for growth, which is hard right now, but also exciting for the future because we know that there's things that we can do to actively get better. And I mean, that's kind of the cool part about Friday night's game was, okay, we're going to give ourselves then the challenge of here's some new mindsets. They talked in the car. Then after the game, here's some new mindsets of what are we going to carry this into? And then they carried that into the next day's game. And you never know when there's two matches in a game what you're going to get. Because if the first night goes terribly quite often, you might not have a great game on Saturday either. But those girls responded and obviously came out with wins for both games.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: So the game against Grace, we're driving back from Kansas City. So we played down in Joplin Friday, spent the night in Kansas City Friday night, and we're coming back Saturday. We stopped at a Culver's for lunch, and everybody's got their phones out. We're watching you guys play. Grace, love the support.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: You went up 20 in sets.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: Right. But you didn't win it to the fifth.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: We're all like, well, first of all, what in the world? They're up 20. This is a good team. Like, wow, this is amazing. And then all of a sudden, are they going to be able to pull this out, talk us through what happened there?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. I think I can remember sitting there on the bench being like, I am not surprised with that. I don't know what to expect. We're playing really well. And it was just kind of the most solidly defensive structure I think we've ever put out on that court.
[00:10:06] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Sure. We have the same girls out every single day. But that morning they showed up to play defense.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: And it showed. It really showed. So I think it was kind of just a mindset of, wow, set one. We really just did that. Can we keep going with it? Can we keep going with it? We're just going to keep going with it. Okay, so it was yeah, just set by set one was great. Set two was like, oh, my gosh, we really can do this. And I think they got into this mindset of, well, now we have to do this. We only have one more set. Can we do it? And it kind of turned into that. Like, I'm talking about that mindset of like, are we going to show up as winners? Are we going to show up, I don't even know. And it's even just set by set, point by point, are you going to make that decision to be a winner? And that that very point. It's your choice. That is up to the athlete's choice. So, yeah, it was very much so. Like, okay, set one, set two and then set three. They were kind of like, okay, well, maybe not. So we had some not so pretty moments in that, but still through that. I mean, you look at the scores for set three and set four, they were still tight.
It was not necessarily our girls saying, okay, well, we're done. That's it, we're out, and then giving up. It was still a fight for every single point. And that's what it should be. When you have a top ten ranked team, you are competing head to head, like back and forth. Should be fighting for every single point.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: You should be. But then last night, Tuesday night, I should say this episode can come out on Thursday. Recording on Wednesday, tuesday night, you guys are playing faith ranked number six, so ranked higher than Grace.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: They are.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: And you beat them in three sets. We did 30.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: We did.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: What happened there?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Gosh, I think it's a whole combination of things.
I think that night it was just kind of, okay, we are here to play. We've seen the victory that we had on Saturday. I think that's a huge part of it. I think it's also a decision of let's play together. It was a lot of scrap ball. I don't know if you watched the game closely, but it was a lot of, like, unconventional play.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: I was getting updates.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Not even the live stream driving the 50 pastor band.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: You want me to watch it while.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I've got fake band?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: I've got all these soccer players malt risk.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah, let me just focus on the.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Live stream instead of the room.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Know what's important here?
No. It was just a back and forth, very unconventional game. Just because of faith structure. They were dealing with some sickness on their side, so they had a different rotation out on the court. So it looked a little bit different than what they were expecting, what our team was expecting. And so because of that, they played very unconventionally, Faith did. So it was a lot of just interesting balls being put over that. We don't know what to do with that because that's so different. So it was a lot of not pretty play. Okay, it worked. Obviously we won, but it still was not the prettiest game we've ever played.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Okay, what were the feelings, the attitude, the conversations, like, after that game?
[00:13:03] Speaker B: Overall positive.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: A win's a win. I think sometimes you just have to accept the ugliness that comes with it. But I would say that there's also things of, okay, well, in those moments, we need to tighten that up. We need to figure that out. And especially at the end of the day, we need to play our game. I think volleyball is very much so a sport of, yeah, you can game plan for what other people are going to do. You can watch all the film you want and say, oh, this player is the one to watch, and this player is the one to watch, and you can try to do some game planning for it, but at the end of the day, if you don't take care of your side, it doesn't matter.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So before we started recording, I asked you, I said, hey, I'm going to want you to kind of pick a player of like, hey, who's really standing out, who really played well this last week, and you said you can't.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: I really can't.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: What you talk about that? Why can't you? What is it about this team?
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Yeah, so especially just thinking back throughout the past three matches that we've seen, it's just been such a team effort. I don't think I can sit here and say, this is the one player that made a difference, because it genuinely was every single girl showing up with that mindset of, I'm going to play today. I'm going to give my heart, I'm going to glorify God on the court in my actions. And it really was just a team win.
It is probably the most unified team that I have seen, that I have been a part of, and I've been around the volleyball team since 2017, so I've been around for a while. So I really have seen this team step it up in the way that they interact with each other. I have seen both on court and off the court instances of like, we are going to do things as a team. We are going to love each other well. We are going to do it on the bench, we are going to do it in the car, we are going to do it in the classroom, we are going to do it on the court. It is going to be a group effort of just, I believe in you, let's go do this. Because volleyball is a team sport. It's individualistic, because if each individual doesn't do their job, it doesn't happen. But at the same time, you got to trust your teammate that's standing right next to you to get that ball, to put that in the right place. It's still got to be a team sport all the way.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: That's really cool to hear. I really appreciate that. That's something I like about this. Well, an aspect of I've talked about with our soccer guys a decent amount of sports and thinking about the Christian life and Christians relating to each other and Christians working with each other and Christians as the body and having different roles and different functions, but needing one another. Right. There's some sports. There's some sports are just individualized. Right. Golf and tennis and things like that. And I love golf. Right. Those can still be fun.
There are some sports like basketball, and me and Matt have this conversation a lot where it's supposed to be a team sport, but you can find success in making it very individualized. Right. One guy can dribble the ball the entire time, and he can just run ISO and take the step back three or get to the rim or whatever it is. Right. And soccer, it's not like that. Soccer, you can't just take on a whole team. Volleyball, by the definition of the rules, you can't like, you have to be going back and forth. Not just one person can hit it. Right. And so you have to rely on other people around you. So I love the way that it relates, especially playing sports in a Christian culture where you're kind of learning, I need my teammates. I need to trust them. They have strengths where I might have weaknesses. I have strengths where they might have weaknesses. How do we work together? How do we still trust each other? If you can't do the thing that I can do, but we've got to be on the field or on the court at the same time, how do I trust you and how do I put you in a position to succeed and help put our team in a position to succeed? That whole aspect is fascinating to me. And I think with our guys and the soccer team, especially in one on one conversations, I really try to highlight to that to them, seeing that, hey, we can grow and learn about living in a family and living in a local body, a local church and all of these aspects of living the Christian life. You can learn a lot of this stuff while you're competing on the sports team. So one of the reasons that's my little pitch for Emmaus sports, for Bible college sports or Christian athletics, you'd say it's a pitch for the NCCAA.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: But I love that. And I love when I get to hear about teams like the volleyball team this year, who are it's not just one player. And you can't even just say it's one player. It's like everybody's working together and they're growing together and they're challenging each other and lifting each other up and all those things. I love that.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: It's bigger than the sport.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Well, I'll walk through soccer real quick here.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Give me the lowdown. I want to hear it.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Do you get a chance to watch any of the games?
[00:17:49] Speaker B: So I watched a little bit of Faith. I was working.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: You picked 30 P-M-I didn't pick time.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: So the middle of my work day, so I watched a little bit of it. I had one of my coworkers playing the game in the background, so I was kind of listening to it in and out.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: I'm sure I can guess which coworkers.
[00:18:05] Speaker B: You can guess exactly which one, but yeah, so I got to see a little bit of it, but I didn't get the weekend games because of the wedding and everything else.
[00:18:14] Speaker A: So we played Ozark on Friday, traveled to Kansas City, spent the night Thursday night, went down to Joplin, another 2 hours down, played at Ozark. Christian it's a good game. We won 20. I think we probably went into it with the expectation of we should be competitive, we should win.
Teams that we've been competitive with have all beat them.
So we felt you can get yourself, as you guys have probably learned, into some danger, saying, well, if we beat this team and they beat that team, then we should also beat that team. It doesn't always work like that, especially at our level, but we felt like we should go in. So we're working on some stuff. We're progressing in our ability to possess the ball, our ability to score goals out of possession, out of the run of play. Most of our goals this season have come out of, like, a free kicker, corner kicks, set pieces, what we call them, right? Or they've come out of long counter attacks, right. We have Christian, who's this incredible striker, very fast, really dynamic, and we send him the ball, and he scored some goals, but that's a very one dimensional way to play. So we're trying to incorporate, hey, can we also score out of possession? And that's happened at Ozark. We got two goals, both came out of possession.
We felt good about that. We missed a bunch of opportunities. Right field playing surface, that's a little different than what we're used to. Skying, a lot of shots, things like that. It's tough, but it was good. There are some good things there. It really told me and Coach McHugh, hey, where should we put our focus? Where should we work on things?
We didn't get all that much time because then we just have one practice on Monday and then we play last night or Tuesday night at Faith.
Originally supposed to be a home game.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Surprise.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Thunderstorms coming to Dubuque. No thunderstorms in ankeny. Apparently there weren't. Yeah. So we were supposed to go play at Faith in a couple of weeks, so we just flip flopped those days. So now we went there Tuesday. They'll come here in a few weeks. But yeah, we went we played Faith. We lost two to one. Two to one was a score at halftime. Okay. And was a score at the end of the game. So it was a second half. It was a pretty good game. We were down two starters due to injury and illness, and we had a couple guys playing who were also sick, so colds have been going around and yeah, guys just season fighting through.
So it was a tough game in that regard, but overall we played pretty well. Right now, Faith would be first in the conference in the MCC.
They're playing really well. We lost to Manhattan three to one a couple of weeks ago. The next day, Faith plays Manhattan and beats them three to one.
So, yeah, we felt pretty good about a two one loss because there are some really good specific moments that we felt like we can grow on and improve on and find some goals. And there were their goal scoring opportunities we think are fixable, like some breakdowns and some stuff we can work. Yeah. And it always helps. Right? Tucker had a couple incredible saves back there. He's just such a fun goalkeeper to watch.
Bennett Kreiner, he'd be the guy I want to focus on this week because he hit this beautiful free kick in the first. Did you see it?
[00:21:36] Speaker B: I didn't see it.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Okay. Beautiful free kick in the first half. He's been putting in a lot of work. I've seen him do it. And then I'm hearing from the other players that he's putting in even more work than probably what me or Coach.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: McHugh know about dedication.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was just a gorgeous free kick. And in the second half, he gets another one, puts it off the crossbar. So close. And it was a gorgeous shot.
We recently moved his position just slightly. He's still playing the midfield, but he's moving to being more of an attacking midfielder now. And it's really unlocked him. I think, actually, me and Coach McHugh and Coach Flores were just texting earlier today about he's like he's able to be creative.
He's really dynamic. And man, that kid, he works so hard. Just such a hard work ethic. He put in a lot of work over the summer.
But to be doing some of the stuff that he's doing as a freshman is really exciting. It's exciting that he's here for four years. I'm excited that we're going to be able to watch him grow every year. Me and him already after the game, we're talking about stuff that he can be working on this offseason to get ready for next year because he's frustrated. I thought he had a great game. He's frustrated with himself over a couple of things. And I'm like, hey, let's talk in November and we can work towards next fall improving those things. We got four years of this. Bennett, this is awesome. So a lot of exciting stuff. We're not finding the same success that you guys are having, but we're definitely going in the right direction.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: You're still growing about it? Yeah, absolutely.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: It's awesome. We feel great about it. But talk to me back to volleyball about the next week.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Okay. So the next week is kind of interesting. So we've got home game on Friday. It is exciting because it's family and alumni weekend, so we'd love to see families and alumni show out for the game for the whole weekend. Come and celebrate with us. We've got Marinatha, one of our regional rivalries at home. And then back to back. We're going then to Marinatha on the following Tuesday and going to be seeing them again there in their home gym. So, back to back, what do we.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Know about Marinatha this season? What about their volleyball team this season?
[00:23:39] Speaker B: We don't know much. We haven't watched a whole bunch of film on them yet, haven't really seen anything. We know that they're returning a couple good starters and they've got a fresh team. Otherwise they've got a new head coach out there. So this could look like a new Marinatha to us. It's wide open possibilities for us, but we're excited to go in and play our game. That's what we're excited about. We've seen that successes over the past couple weekends, especially this past weekend, and we know that there's a lot that we can do. So we're excited. We're going in with heads held high. We are still undefeated in the region, and we'd love to keep it that way.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: That would be awesome.
All right, I think we had a little issue there with the recording, but we're back on. But yeah, this alumni weekend, family alumni weekend, it's awesome. We get these massive crowds. It's going to be great having people.
There'll be alumni dinner up in the mezzanine, there'll be a lot of people in the crowd. We get the gym packed. Like I said earlier, volleyball games are just super exciting. Right. There's a point every single rally which is going right. And I say that as a soccer coach, it's tough for people that don't always know the game. I'd love to teach you about it though, but yeah, so the gym will be really exciting.
Excited to watch you guys hopefully beat Marinatha Friday night. Yeah.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: And you spurgeon.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah, then we have Spurgeon the next day. Spurgeon on Saturday for the soccer team. We lost to them three to two a couple of weeks ago. It was a rough one. We were up 20 about 60 minutes in. We were up 20, and maybe it was even 65 minutes in, whatever it was the last 25 or 30 minutes. We give up three goals to lose three to two.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Heartbreaking.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: We felt like we should have won that game. Yeah. I think the whole team, the coaching staff, everybody walked away being like, we should have won that game. And we just let it slip through our fingers. So we're excited. We're excited to have 35 or so soccer playing alumni amazing. Here to play in the alumni game. We're excited to have lots of families here to watch. Probably more alumni that aren't soccer playing alumni in front of all of them. We want to show, hey, that was a mistake and we're going to be better this time. Absolutely. We're really excited for that.
Yeah, exactly. So other than that, Meg, thanks for coming on. Excited to have you. And for the listeners, hopefully, we Matt and Shane next week. Thanks. For listening the.
