If football can do it, then so can volleyball

There’s a lot of talk right now that the Columbia football team is having something of an about-face this season. I’m not sure I’m buying the hype just yet. Despite the score, the first game was far closer than it appeared. To Columbia’s credit, they managed to score every time they got into the red zone—a stat that would make any team envious. However, the longest drive that Columbia had to sustain to score was 51 yards—barely more than halfway down the field. Between the three interceptions and the new freshman who can punt, Columbia got a lot of opportunities to have a short field. Can they control the field position game in the future as well as they did this weekend? Time will tell. I sure hope so. I’m cautiously optimistic (because being truly optimistic is the kiss of death for any Columbia fan). Despite the great front-page coverage of the football team’s first road win in a while, there’s another team that I believe is having quite the turn-around of its own, without much in the way of fanfare. Have you heard of that other Coach Wilson? He and his players ought to be making headlines in this paper, too. When I first looked at the stats for the Columbia volleyball team for this season, I couldn’t help but think that it looked awfully similar to last year’s nonconference results. Nonconference opponents can run the gamut in terms of strength and difficulty, and looking around the league, we’ve got the easier set of nonconference teams. Our 7-4 record looks stronger than others because we’re not playing Arizona State, Wyoming, or Colorado as our warmup to Ivy League matches like some of our conference rivals. And it looks like our nonconference record is shaping up to be about the same as it was last year. However, after getting into the gym and watching my share of volleyball games lately, I’ve had a change of heart. I don’t think that this is going to be just another season of Ivy League disappointment for the players, coach, and community. If nothing else, this team looks like it is learning how to fight for its wins. For one, the Lions have yet to lose a match that goes to five games. That is an epic change. Last year, if they managed to wrestle it out into five games, Columbia didn’t often finish with a victory. In 2008, they won two of four matches that went to five games, and in 2007 they only took one of their matches to five. The team was shutout 16 times in 2007, improved to only nine last year and, as of today, has only been shutout in a single game. I don’t know about you, but I think I smell a turn-around. And, that is exactly what I want to see. I want to see the league’s (and likely the nation’s) shortest outside hitter, 5’ 6” sophomore Cindy Chen, crush a ball and break some unsuspecting player’s nose. She hits that hard. I want to see Ellie Thomas, the only senior who has truly played four years with the team, get her first Ivy win since freshman year against Brown. Just like newcomers resuscitated the football team three years ago, the volleyball team is getting revitalized by the immediate contributions of some spunky, talented freshmen this season. First-year setter Kelsey Musselman has been a breath of fresh air for the front-row players, and she’s a springboard for Megan Gaughn and Erin Longinotti, Columbia’s set of powerful freshman outside hitters. However, just like for the football team of yesteryear, those fresh, young players come at a price—they don’t have the years of experience or extra practice and can still occasionally play like “scared freshmen.” Bad passes and ever-so-slightly-off blocks result in easy points for Columbia’s opponents. So, too, does miscommunication. I’ve watched more than one game in which the ball has literally just dropped in the middle of the court with six Light Blue women staring at it because nobody committed to the ball. But I think they’ve got momentum—they are turning this program around. This weekend, they’ll see if they can extend their home winning streak to five games versus Cornell. Yeah, it’s at the same time as the football game. For some reason that happens a lot. And yeah, the Athletic Department does a much better job convincing people to show up to football games than they do to volleyball games. They’d probably even admit that it’s intentional. But hey, you’ll get to watch another team that has been struggling to find a victorious identity through a coaching and recruiting transition with a guy named Coach Wilson. As for my predictions? I’m optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. Lisa Lewis is a Barnard College senior majoring in economics. sports@columbiaspectator.com