“Not rain, nor sleet or snow.” Well what about air-conditioning
and electricity?

While most other people on campus were having to figure out how
to find cool and comfort earlier this week during the unexpected
power outage, the Saint Louis University Volleyball team had been
dealing with a lack of air conditioning for the better part of two
weeks. And deal they have.

So while their normal, air conditioned practice venue, at the
Simon Recreational Center is having work done on it since Aug. 13,
the volleyball team has sought refuge in the friendly confines of a
local elementary school’s properly cooled gymnasium.

The off-campus venue spared the team of the blinding heat and
discomfort of the Baughman-Eberhart Center, which if it were
anymore low rent it would be a spring break destination.

“[Assistant Coach] Corey Arbini’s father was able to lend us the
facilities of Monroe Elementary down the road, and that is where
we’ve been having a lot of our practices and scrimmages,” said head
coach Marilyn Nolen.

But that’s the price the team was willing to pay in their
pursuit of excellence; if you want to be the best you have to get
your hits in. And with the seasoning opening showdown against
Purdue looming on August 29, which will kick off the team’s highly
contested annual tournament, the hits just keep on coming.

“With our tournament just around the corner, beginning with
Purdue, we don’t have a lot of time to get ready,” Nolen said.

It will be hard for the Bills to expand on last year’s finish,
which included a third place finish in the Conference USA standings
and a perfect conference home record, but definitely not
impossible.

The goals seem all the more attainable when considering what the
Bills are bringing back from last year’s team, their incredible
spring training results and this year’s solid class of incoming
recruits.

“I think that we even surprised ourselves with how well we did
this spring, and you can just see the girls out there are having
fun. They are genuinely excited to be playing out there,” Nolen
said.

While the real hits will not start coming until next Friday, the
Bills are ready to go today, which means that they should be a lot
of fun to watch for their fans, and a force to reckon with for
their opponents. Nolen, who is entering her 32nd year of coaching,
knows exactly what it takes to make a winner and everything that
could possibly get in the team’s way on the path of victory. That
trickles down to all facets of the team, including Arbini and new
assistant Sarah Pieper.

“Corey is a real student of the game. He went through all of my
old notes from my years of coaching and found all sorts of new
material for us to use, and the girls react well to him too,” Nolen
said.

“Sarah was a junior college All-American back when she played,
and she will be a great asset for our team and for me,” Nolen
said.

And rest assured that when Purdue comes to town next week, the
Bills will be the ones dishing out most of the hits.