The Bulldogs look to bounce back this year after a 7-23 record during last season’s campaign. Photo by Drew Kosmak.
BROOKS BAKER-WATSON | STAFF REPORTER | bbakerwatson@butler.edu
Last year, the volleyball team ended the season with a 7-23 record — the worst record in program history, excluding the COVID-shortened season.
This year, the Bulldogs already find themselves at 7-6 through just 13 games.
Head coach Kyle Shondell has the Dawgs hungrier than ever to correct course and compete for a Big East championship this year. That hunger, junior opposite hitter Sawyer Jones says, comes from a simple phrase repeated in every practice.
“Every ball means something,” Jones said. “It’s a big theme for our season this year.”
It shows on the court that the Bulldogs have taken those words to heart. In every game, whether they win or lose, and regardless of playing against Big Ten powerhouses or consistent Division I programs, Butler consistently brings a fiery competitiveness to each match.
None of that competitive spirit was lacking this past weekend when the Bulldogs hosted the Butler Invitational at the Fishers Event Center on Sept. 19-20. Shondell believed the opportunity to play in that arena was more than enough to motivate the team.
“It’s exciting to get to go to the Fishers Event Center,” Shondell said. “It’s where the Indy Ignite play, our hometown professional team. It’d be like if Coach Lynch and [the football team] went to play at Lucas Oil, or if Thad [Matta] and the [men’s] basketball team went to play at Gainbridge [Fieldhouse].”
Butler left the weekend on a positive note, going 2-1 with wins against Eastern Michigan and Oakland. The Dawgs were nearly able to pull off an invitational sweep, but fell to IU Indianapolis in five sets after starting up 2-0.
With the invitational now over, the Bulldogs turn their focus towards the main test of the season: conference play.
The Big East tends to be unpredictable each year, according to Shondell. However, he believes that the Dawgs are good enough to have success within the conference.
“Every year it’s kind of a brand new Big East, and this year is no different,” Shondell said. “We’ve got teams [from last year] that were toward the top of the standings who are plummeting toward the bottom, teams that were toward the bottom, kind of like us, starting to rise to the top, but everybody’s 0-0 in the Big East right now … I think we are competitive enough to compete with anyone in the league.”
From these conference games, junior outside hitter Elise Ward hopes that the team will continue to grow as the season progresses.
“When we get into conference play, we’re not going to just coast,” Ward said. “We still want to get better [each week], [from the] first week of conference to the end of November.”
Butler begins Big East play Sept. 24 at Xavier, a match that could give fans, coaches and players alike insight into how non-conference play has prepared this squad to take on conference opponents.
“I’m excited to see if the effort we put into preseason and non-conference play has prepared us adequately for conference play,” Shondell said. “We start off with Xavier and then we go to Creighton, who was about three points away from beating the number one team in the country, so it’s a test; we’ll find out how good we are pretty fast.”
This season, the Bulldogs are on a mission fueled by the desire to flip the script for Butler volleyball. This team has something to prove, and they will not slow down until they have shown everyone that this new team is the real deal.
