Gonzaga University women's volleyball senior setter Denise Van de Mortel will be keeping us up-to-date on everything women's volleyball throughout the 2011 season. Stayed tuned every week for the inside look into the Zags volleyball program!
Dishin' With Deni: Blog 5
This past week we got a little bit of time off to reset and recover before moving into West Coast Conference play this week. It was nice to have a couple days to finish getting settled into the new school year and get our minds ready to go at it this week. Even with the weekend off, there were plenty of things going on around campus to keep us busy.
One thing that is unique about Gonzaga is the amount of support each of the teams give to each other. We are all pretty close and make an effort to make it to each other's games. Men's and women's soccer had games all weekend, so we were able to go out and show some support.
The women's game against Washington State was a P.R.I.D.E event, which is a program put on by SAAC, to promote student-athlete involvement in the community and on campus. There are several P.R.I.D.E events throughout the year, and each team gets points based on how many members of the team show up. At the end of the year, the team with the most points gets money toward their locker room. Two years ago, we won the P.R.I.D.E. contest and purchased a brand new flat screen for our locker room. Determined to win again this year our team made a good appearance at the soccer game and also at the Athlete Bowling party, another P.R.I.D.E. event.
Every year, we are invited to a welcome back party for all the student-athletes. It is at a local bowling alley, and each team dresses up with a theme of their choice. There is a costume contest to win candy and extra P.R.I.D.E. points of course. It was a lot of fun and all the teams got into it. We dressed as the Calendar Girls; from January to December picking the thing in that month that is most memorable. We had a cupid in February, a Fourth of July firework, a Pilgrim in November and of course Christmas in December. We ended up tying for first place in the costume contest with the baseball players, who were dressed in full banana body suits. I do have to give a shout-out to the women's basketball ladies for their prom theme. Half of the team dressed as boys and half as girls, so they all had a date. It was pretty funny and we all had a good time together.
I think the best bowler on our team is Meredith Crenshaw. She claims that she watched her uncle as a kid and picked up some tips. By the end of the night she was bowling for half our team who lost interest after the tenth gutter ball. There was music and food and it was a really fun night with great friends.
As much as I didn't want the weekend to end, I am ready to jump in to another full week of classes, practice, and games! We start conference play on Thursday and we are all so excited. GOOO ZAGS!
Previous Blogs
Blog One - Aug. 23
Blog Two - Aug. 30
Blog Three - Sept. 6
Blog Four - Sept. 13
