Surmounting some significant hurdles, the Bluefield State College volleyball team has overcome a compressed preseason and ignored the growing pains associated with getting a program started. The Lady Blues posted six wins in their first campaign. Shortly after wrapping up the season, BSC coach Angie Buckingham took time to reflect upon the accomplishments of her team.

"The girls just came together," Buckingham said. "When I arrived, we had about a week and a half before the first match." Working with her husband, Todd, who also coaches the Lady Blues softball team, Buckingham saw that her first challenge was to find more players. "We had only five girls, and you can't play unless you have six," she recalled. "A few softball players who had played volleyball before decided to help and I knew a couple of people in school here who had played before. They joined the team, too, and eventually we had a roster of ten." The players who launched the program included Nikki Mackey, Nikke Resta, Keremy Mauzy, Shena Toler,Amanda Martin, Danielle Lyle, Lisa Shrewsury, Tina Boggs, Meagan Koehler, Leslie Whitt, and statistician Melissa Bolden..

Buckingham, a former high school and college (Purdue University) volleyball player, built the team around its competitiveness. "The volleyball girls had a 'heart' theme," she explained. "We may not have had the most talented players in the conference, but there wasn't a single girl who didn't play with every bit of her heart."

"It was important to have girls who didn't didn't want to lose," she continued. Nikki Mackey came from Shady Spring, so she wasn't used to losing. Keremy (Mauzy) hated to lose. Every girl was hungry to win every time we played, and we played our best games against the best teams. The top four teams in the olnference all said they were surprised by how competitive we were."

As a fulltime audiologist on the staff of Dr. William Larsen and Appalachian Hearing & Balance, Buckingham maintains a tight schedule. "I fortunate to have a boss who works with me so I can coach," she stated.

"With our coaching duties, Todd and I have become experts at juggling our schedules. Our laundry gets behind, our kitchen isn't always extra clean, and our dogs would like to be walked more, but we enjoy what we do."

Buckingham also thanked the BSC baseball program for its help. "We had a lot of baseball players who volunteered to help at our practices," she said. "When some of our players couldn't be at practice because they had class or were playing softball, the baseball players and our student assistant coaches--Carrie Lilly and Abdulaziz Ahoud--would provide a group we could play against." With year one in the book, Buckingham looks to the future. "We will lose only one player (Mauzer), and the rest of our players are working out," she noted. "We want to be an impact team in the conference. We'll bring in some players with college experience and some strong freshmen to add to the players we have coming back. Teams were impressed by us during our first year. Next year, we're really going to right at them."

November 22, 2004