University of Illinois Springfield coach Trey Salinas and his players started the season with a goal: qualify for the Great Lakes Valley Conference Volleyball Championship Tournament for the first time in program history.
Then the season got rolling and their goals morphed into something bigger.
“As we got into the back stretch of our conference play, we realized we were talking about things that were past the conference tournament,” Salinas said.
Earning the program’s first NCAA Division II regional ranking ever at the beginning of this month changed how the Prairie Stars were seeing the season.
After receiving the No. 10 ranking in the Midwest Region, things kept getting better. UIS went on a 10-match win streak and surpassed the 20-win mark for the first time in a decade.
“We kind of realized that we were better than what we thought we could be,” UIS junior middle blocker Alyssa Hasler said. “Our goal at the beginning of the season was just to make the GLVC tournament. Now the fact that we could make the NCAA tournament is kind of adding fuel to our fire.”
This story appeared in The State Journal-Register on November 15, 2017.
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