Colorado University Athletics
Buff Volleys With Coach Kenneally
Nicole Kenneally
Colorado Tennis head coach Nicole Kenneally will share her thoughts with Buffs fans on her team's progress throughout the 2009 spring season. This week she writes about CU's challenging swing through the state of Texas.
Dear All,
I take this moment to reflect on the great opportunity and privilege which the young ladies on my team, as well as other teams, are receiving to play a sport at such a high level and at the same time to learn a lot of valuable life lessons. I also have such a fantastic job in regards to the helping these young ladies develop into the person which they want to be. This is a responsibility which I do not take lightly.
This weekend we played against two very good opponents in Texas and Texas A&M and I give them full credit for playing two tough matches. I think we fought and tried but did not necessarily have all of the tools in our tool belt that we needed. We continue to learn about ourselves and to keep digging deeper in our journey to be the best that we can be.
On Friday vs. Texas Camilla Belassi did a great job closing out her opponent and Melisa Esposito really had their #1 player on the ropes but just was a little short in closing her out. On Sunday vs. Texas A&M we came out ready to play but so was Texas A&M. We really took to the Aggies at #1 doubles and we were dead even with them at #2 and #3 however they pulled away with both matches. In singles we got off to rough starts at #4 and #2 but we put up a tremendous fight in the remainder of the matches. We had four matches on in long 3-set matches and even though A&M had taken a 3-0 lead the match was not decided until that last ball was hit. At the end of the day we split the last 4 matches.
Camilla Belassi
We were definitely coming to Texas to take wins but it did not happen on this weekend. Obviously, I believe you have the choice to either see a loss as a positive or a negative and your mindset can determine how you feel. We definitely continue to learn about ourselves as a team and as individuals and look forward to keep working on our games. As we all know the Big 12 is competitive and we still have some good teams ahead of us and we look forward to those battles and to take with us all of our experiences.
This weekend we head to Missouri and play on Saturday. Our last home matches are against Iowa State (Friday, April 17 at 2 p.m.) and against Nebraska (Sunday, April 19, 11 a.m.). We hope you can make it out.
Go Buffs!
Nicole