The final home volleyball weekend of the season for Illinois State will include honors for seniors Jenny Kabbes, Erin Jones and Lacy McFarland along with a chance for the Redbirds to secure a spot in the six-team State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Tournament two weeks from now in Peoria.
The Redbirds, 11-11 overall, 8-6 in the Valley, will clinch their 21st straight conference tournament appearance (21 of 21) with a win this weekend against either Creighton, 1-21, 1-14, or Drake, 5-23, 2-13. The Redbirds play Creighton on Friday and Drake on Saturday, both 7 p.m. matches at Redbird Arena.
Kabbes, who recently joined former teammate Kendra Haselhorst as the only players in Redbird history with more than 500 career blocks, will be honored along with Jones and McFarland during Saturdays Senior Player Night festivities. With 931 career digs, Jones has a shot at becoming only the fifth Redbird player to reach 1,000 career digs.
Redbird mentor Sharon Dingman, in her 13th season as a college head coach, believes their leadership is more than on-court statistics.
I can only remember one other time--our 1997 team at Butler--when one of my teams had leadership of the quality we have on this team, said Dingman, whose team began the practice season in August shortly after the departure of both assistant coaches and two players from the squad. The season began for us with a lot of changes, but, because of the leadership we have in Jenny, Erin and Lacy, this team stayed focused on its goals. They have showed that leadership doesnt just show up once in a while--its an everyday thing.
With seven freshmen and three sophomores, Dingman believes one of the best outcomes of her 2002 senior leadership will be its legacy to those younger players, particularly junior Staci Boyce and sophomores Amber Rogers, Kelly Rikli and Paige White.
The younger players can see what Jenny, Erin and Lacys leadership has done for our team, said Dingman. Staci, Amber, Kelly and Paige all should benefit from that, and that experience will give us better leadership in the future.
The Redbirds have four conference matches left, including Nov. 15 at Northern Iowa and Nov. 16 at Bradley. Dingman believes its all preparation for the conference tournament Nov. 23 and 24.
We want to continue to become a better team, said Dingman, whose Redbirds capped a three-match losing streak last Friday with a 3-0 win at Indiana State. Even though we lost to Notre Dame, I feel that match helped us get better.
