The late March flooding of Fargo, N.D., may have stopped the Northern Intercollegiate Volleyball Conference’s (NIVC) 2009 Conference Tournament from being played there, but it did not stop the UW-Eau Claire men’s volleyball team from winning five of the seven matches it played at the tournament.
“We were undefeated in the conference, so a lot of teams get pretty excited to play us,” junior Tim Bomgren said. “We couldn’t get any runs going, and we did a lot of little things wrong here and there, and we need to clean things up for our national tournament in two weeks.”
With Mankato State University (Minn.) as an impromptu host to the tournament, the Blugolds played seven games against their NIVC rivals on March 28 and March 29. With 15 teams from across the Midwest descending on Minnesota, the then 38-7 team faced some of its best competition of the season.
Eau Claire sent two teams to the conference tournament – the “Blue” team was the name given to the first team, while the “White” team represented the second team. The Blue team won its opening match against UW-River Falls, 25-14, 22-25, 16-14. The Blue team then sandwiched a pair of sweeps of St. John’s (Minn.) and Gustavus Adolphus (Minn.) around a 2-1 victory over North Dakota State University. The team then failed to come back for a victory against River Falls to cap off the first day of games.
“We’ve got a lot of guys jumping in and filling some spots,” Bomgren said. “We lost four guys last year, and it’s tough to replace an All-American. We’re just trying to do what we can with what we have.”
On the second day, the Blugolds defeated Bethel (Minn.) but then lost to eventual champion Providence, ending the tournament for the team. Despite playing against the No. 1 teams that other colleges sent to the tournament, the “White” team managed to stay close in most of its games but was unable to come away victorious – the team lost all six games it played.
“We’ve had to go through some tough things as a team, but we pulled through them,” White-team freshman Joel Bodilly said. “I think a lot of the (White) team is hoping to continue playing and working their way up to the ‘Blue’ team.”
The Blugolds will compete in the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association National Championships this coming weekend in Kansas City, Mo. Last year, the team finished fifth overall in the national tournament. Since then, the Blugolds have lost several players, including All-American middle hitter Justin Wilke. Despite losing key contributors from last year’s team, Bomgren maintains a positive attitude and high expectations.
“We’re not as strong of a team as we were last year,” he said, “but I still think we can finish in the top 12. Hopefully we’ll get to the Gold Division, and hopefully we’ll hold our own.”