[chopertony]

Another great weekend for the Lady Flames and they are on a roll !

A quick scouting report for next week:

First up, JMU. Currently 2-3 this season. If the girls play like they have the last two weeks, they should post another W.

Cornell will be next. Their first game of the season will be against the Flames. This Ivy League team went 9-16 last year. We have a good chance against this team. Remember Princeton in 2007?

Northern Iowa. Currently 5-0 this season. Went 22-11 last year and went to the big dance. This is where things will get exciting for the Flames. This is a BIG team with 9 players over 6-0 to 6-3. Their blocking front is huge. We will need our serious A-Game for this one.

K-State. Currently 5-1 this season. Went 23-9 last year and also made a trip to the big dance. Another big team up front with 8 trees above 6'-0". Should be fun.

This next week provides several big opportunities for our Lady Flames. Whatever the outcome, they will have played against some of the best. Any predictions?

[Liberofan]

Nice rundown chopertony!
As you point out Northern Iowa and Kansas State are at a different level from the teams we have played so far. Northern Iowa is unranked and will be the toughest challenge we have faced so far, followed by Kanasa State (ranked #20 in the country last week) will be our last match.
I think it is unfortunate we have to play both these teams on the same day, 11am & 8PM.
My first prediction is a lot of ice will be needed at the end of the day.

Game predictions: We continue to improve and get rid of the 1 set per match that we seem to fall apart.
This will give us decisive wins over JMU and Cornell.

Sept. 13th we will play our best VB to date and win one of the matches against Northern Iowa or Kansas State! We will see our first loss but it will be a battle that the winner will feel lucky to have escaped with a win.
Win or lose we will show we can hang with the big dogs!!!

[chopertony]

Hey Libero Fan, great to hear from you. I agree, from my scouting report, Cornell and JMU are games we can win. A win against K-State and/or Northern Iowa will be icing on the cake. If we come up short against those two teams, the experience will only get the Flames more prepared for another run at the Big South Championship.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the girls can pull this off but it will take an effort like the game we took off Cal last year. The next two weeks will provide the girls top notch competition and experience that they will need to defend their title.

Go Flames!

[Liberofan]

Chopertony,
How's the weather out west? Oh yeah, it's always good in your neck of the woods

Your right about getting experiance regardless of the wins or losses by playing the tougher teams. I think Shane did a great job in the scheduling for this year to prepare this team to defend the Big South Conf title.

And also get a higher seed in the tourney if they can steal a win or two from the top teams.
We will get a pretty good idea of how we stand nationally after Kansas and South Bend.
I know, I know, we're just getting started ,
I do like the way the team is coming together and progressing at this point in the season.

[chopertony]

The weather here in San Diego? Hold on, let me check...... Yep, sunny and warm!

From watching this team for 3 years now, I can tell you they are way ahead of where they were at this point last season. That is saying alot considering what a magic season they had last year. If they can stay focussed, they will have another great year.

[ATrain]

My predictions:
JMU-W 3-0
Cornell-W 3-1
Northern Iowa-W 3-2
Kansas State-L 3-1

[Gymtalk]

Question To Everyone: What do you think would happen if the girls posted the following record at the end of the weekend?

W - Liberty over JMU
W - Liberty over Cornell
W - Liberty over Northern Iowa
W - Liberty over Kansas State

It's a wonderful goal for this team!

Laura and I saw Kansas State play last weekend at the Nike Invitational at the University of Portland. Their outside and right side hitters (one from Poland, the other from Russia) are very good. However, I believe we have better volleyball players over all. I predict the KSU match to be very hard fought and close.

GO LIBERTY VOLLEYBALL!

PS - Hey Liberofan, welcome to the volleyball family. Your daughter is playing great! From what I've heard, all the freshman have great attitudes and are working hard to make the team better.

[Vadim]

Let's see, KState and NIowa went to the big dance last year. OK. On their message boards, they are probably saying, "LU went to the big dance last year and took a game off of Cal, a final four team. Going to be a tough contest." My scouting expert (Gymtalk) tells me that KState has a 5'7" setter who can't jump like Karyl and they run a 5-1. Seems to me Nicki, Jess, or Karyl should have fun hitting line against them. If they compensate to cover our success over their, then our middles and right sides should see some single blocks to hammer past. I like those odds.

[thesportscritic]

interesting info. Gymtalk i have met every volleyball fan (parents) on this board except you. when are you going to be in the burg to watch LU play?

[Hold My Own]

This is a very big tourny for the Flames, it's important they carry momentum into ND




Potential recruits have already taken notice with our good start and now some VERY good players have a watchful eye on the program, some should even be making some games to watch in person while on the road.

[ATrain]

Good luck to the Lady Flames, starting tonight at JMU.

[bigsmooth]

thanks for all the scouting reports and insight!!

[Gymtalk]

To thesportscritic:

Sorry we've not crossed paths, but I would hope to meet you during one of the following weekends:

- Kansas State Tournament (9/12 - 9/13)
- Notre Dame Tournament (9/19 - 9/21)
- Liberty Matches in Lynchburg (10/10 - 10/11)
- Liberty Homecoming & Parent Weekend (10/24 - 10/25)

Laura and I cannot wait to see the team play. We will be the couple dressed in Liberty red shirts, flying on US Airlines the next few weekends.

Go Liberty!!!

[Liberofan]

It's so exciting to be a part of this "family" as you put it Gymtalk. It certainly felt like a family in Richmond.

Wish I could see more matches but right now it looks like South Bend may be the only one we will make it to. It's only an hour from Three Rivers to South Bend. Will look for you there. It's usually pretty easy to find the Liberty fan family!!!

Hopefully the girls are not looking ahead. JMU looks like a Central Michigan level team and we only took CMU 3-2. Can't give anything away like that again. I think we need a 3-0 win tonight to have confidence for Saturday.

I will be watching on the horrible quality video streaming, it's better then nothing.

To all, please give our Kelly lots of hugs for us. I think it is hard for her too, not to have us there.

[Kolzilla41]

Good Luck to the girls on these next few games. They are certainly making the Liberty faithful proud!

[ATrain]

Liberty up 2-1 over JMU as we head into Game 4

[ATrain]

http://www.jmusports.com/liveStats/newL ... T_ID=89884

Link to the live stats

[ATrain]

JMU out to an early 9-4 lead in Game 4

[ATrain]

Game 4 tied at 16-all

[ATrain]

LU now up 23-19...lets finish it up to be 7-0

[thesportscritic]

LU wins in 4 final 20-25, 25-23, 25-14, and 25-22

[ATrain]

LU wins game 4 25-22 for the match. GO LADY FLAMES!!!

[thesportscritic]

we finally beat them Dukes! haven't beaten then since 2003

[Vadim]

For those who wondered if we would make it home tonight, it is now 3:00am and we just made it back from JMU. It's been a long day. Here's the recap from how I saw it. First, more girls than just Nicki were under the weather tonight. We started out with a few good plays and so did they. Then they took a good lead, and we finally started getting some momentum toward the end of the first set. The girls seemed a little out of sync all night. Our defense looked a little shaky at times and our timing on offense was not clicking. The great thing about it is that we never seemed to lose our composure, and just kept plugging along. We just dominated them in the third set. It was by far our best play of the night. Karyl saved us in the 4th set. We were down 15-11 when she went up to serve. Next thing you know we are up 17-15. It was a tough match mostly because we did not play as well as we are able. The bright spot is that we have learned how to win ugly when necessary. Now we will be off the see Dorothy and Toto and upset KState.

[ATrain]

Not getting back till 3? Next time, just stay at my place in LBurg.

Anyway, who isn't feeling good? We've been having some of the same issues on our women's tennis team with players being sick.