The 2008 Team

 

Coaches

Ryan Theis--Head Coach

Kyle Weindel--Assistant Coach

Meghan Keck--Assistant Coach

Jenny Manz Theis--Volunteer Assistant Coach

Bryan Weigel--Intern Director of Operations

 

Written portraits are by Molly Mangan, from her Blog post of Sept 26, 2008

Seniors

Amanda Andersen

Amanda will do literally anything to get a laugh out of someone. You could be having the worst day and she will bust out the most idiotic and awkward dance moves in the middle of practice, or tell the worst joke just to make you laugh and cheer you up. The best thing about her is she can laugh at herself. I think she makes fun of herself more than anyone else, which makes her that much funnier.

Jill DeArmond

Jill is our team mom. Whenever I or anyone else on our team has a question about what time practice starts, what to bring on a road trip, etc. Jill knows the answer. She is probably the most organized and prepared person I have ever met in my life. She's always around to lend an ear, or a shoulder to cry on. It is like she has had the mom gene built in since birth. She has been this way since we roomed together our freshman year.

Whitney Maiden

I would have to say that Whitney is the sarcastic one on the team. We have a sarcastic team in general, but I think she takes the cake. She never takes herself too seriously, which makes everyone else never take her seriously with the things she says. Whitney is also probably the best dancer on our team as well. I don’t know how she got such killer dance moves, being from Nelsonville and all. But the girl can bust a move.

Molly Mangan

Molly writes the posts!

McKenzie Mauck

Mac is the entertainer of our team. Our team literally will be sitting around laughing hysterically as Mac entertains with anything from singing, dancing, and impersonations. She sings happy birthday to every one of us on our birthdays and manages to create a completely new version of the famous song by adding her own spice to it. She is also our team’s resident DJ. If you want to know what the hot new songs are, look no further than Mac. She is always creating new cd’s for our team to listen to at practice.

Juniors

Ellen Herman

If there was a popularity contest on campus, I am pretty sure Ellen would win. She knows EVERYONE on this campus. I will be walking down the street with her and literally four out of the five people will pass will know and say Hi to Ellen, if not stop and talk to her. And in typical Ellen fashion she will ask them about some detail in their life that most people would have overlooked. But of course she remembers. Ellen always goes that extra mile, whether it's on the volleyball court, for her teammates, or for people she barely knows. That's just how she is.

Sarah Petrulis

I love Sarah for how random she is. One day I was just standing next to her talking about nothing in particular when she looks at me and says "You know what cereal tastes good and you don't really expect it to? Special K!" You cannot help but laugh because she has moments like this all the time. Our team will be talking about one thing and she is completely off in her own world. It's like she forgets that we cannot read her thoughts and expects us to just follow along with her.

Meghan Simons

Along with Jane, Meg is the other grammar queen on our team. Constantly reminding us that we are doing well, not good. We want to win really bad, not real bad. (When she reads this she will probably correct me on all of my grammar mistakes) Meghan has a subtle humor about her that often gets lost in all of the noise of our team. But if you happen to catch any of her hilarious one liners, you will die.

Jane Sytsma

Jane is our resident genius on the team. If I ever tell a witty or intelligent joke, I can always count on Jane to understand it. Her favorite pastimes include correcting people on their grammar errors, whistling to songs in perfect pitch, and performing experiments on our team for her own good. Today she did an experiment by placing a bag of Sun Chips in her locker to see how many people would eat them. She literally had a hypothesis and variables. It is no wonder the girl has a 4.0.

 

Sophomores

Meryl Bender

Meryl is the biggest ball of energy I have ever seen packed into a 5' 5" frame. There are times when literally the whole team is dead, whether in practice or in the vans after a five hour flight, and Meryl is still buzzing away, loving life. Meryl would also have to be the fashionista of our team. She always has the hippest clothes. While most of us just wear our sweats to class every day. Meryl bops into the locker room (obviously full of energy) in the cutest outfits.

Sue Jacobi

Sue is our current grandma of the team. Although we more affectionately like to call her the "lunch lady" for the way she runs. She has a very distinct kind of run and we never let her live it down, much to her dismay. We call her Grandma because she is only 19 with the body of a Grandma. On any given
day her hips, back, and knees will most likely all be hurting. You can often find her before practice with heat packs all over her body, and after practice with ice packs.

Michelle Jantsch

What can I say about Mij? Michelle is just Michelle. I do not know really how to explain it. She just beats to her own drum. She really is one of a kind. She is goofy, weird, and funny all mixed into one. She also loves wearing her old soccer shorts wherever she goes. She would wear them to practice if she could. She tried to wear soccer shorts to an open gym this past winter and we had to send her back to the locker-room and told her not to come back until she had volleyball spandex on. That is just Mij being Mij.

 

Freshmen

Katie Post

I think most people would agree with me that when you watch Katie on the court she is an intimidating girl. She has this look when she plays like she is going to rip your head off---but before that she ll get three kills off you. The thing is, she is the biggest sweetheart. She ll rip a ball down the line at practice almost taking off one of the defensive specialist’s heads, and she’ll say she’s sorry for it a million times and feel so bad. She’s also a phenomenal dancer; she busted out some pretty serious moves before our match against MTSU.

Nicole Staverman

Nicole walked into preseason this year like she had done this a million times. She has a very calm demeanor about her on the court and takes care of business. Off the court however, is a different story. When she isn t in a drill you can usually find her entertaining herself by doing the most random things. We gave her the nickname Hank because of how random she is. We just thought it up one day, a random nickname for a random girl. She also has become our team bug girl. Any time there is a bug on the court or in our general vicinity we call on Hank, and she just picks it up off the floor, inspects it, and disposes of it like no big deal.

 

 

 

 

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