Photographing Volleyball Again

It is weird how things work over the years. Some years I end up photographing a ton of volleyball, and others I don’t get out to very much. This seems like a year when I didn’t get out to many matches. Last night I had the chance to photograph most of the Purdue volleyball match against Rutgers before the start of the Purdue women’s basketball game. To be honest it was a fairly boring game to photograph because Purdue was handling things so easily. There was very little emotion. I would guess that Purdue has more competition in practice than they did last night. That is a good thing. The way that this team is playing right now they could end up hosting some NCAA volleyball at home again. I hope they do as it will give me a few more chances to make some photos.

The Play At The Net

I love these plays at the net. I pretty much am always looking for it during a match. These are quick little battles, but they look so good most of the time. This is not my best photo of one of these moments, but I really like how it turned out. Hopefully I have a couple of more of these in me this year.

A Familiar Face

This year the twirling team at Purdue has a familiar face. Audrey Circle was a twirler at Harrison for the last few years. One night after leaving a soccer match at sunset I saw her practicing her fire twirling in the parking lot of the school. She is very talented at what she does so much so that she is a silver twin as a freshman. It will be fun to see where this takes her over the next few years. Here she performs during a break in the match.

That’s So Raven

During the match Raven Colvin made the 600th block of her career. She is only the second Boilermaker to ever reach that mark. She is a force at the net getting a piece of a lot of the opponents shots. Here she gets a good piece of a shot.

Who Is A Jeopardy Champion?

During another timeout Adriana Harmeyer was introduced to the crowd. Adriana was a big time Jeopardy champion winning quite a bit of money before it was all said and done. It was pretty cool to see the crowd give her a nice ovation during her time on the court.

What’s Next For Volleyball?

I think that it is safe to say that Purdue would need to host for me to see more volleyball this year. I am booked during their final couple of matches so this could have been the last time that I will see some players on the court. Photographing the NCAA Tournament is always fun though so I really hope that I get another chance to do so. So far in my career I have been lucky enough to get a few chances to do so, but one more is always welcome. The stakes are much higher so the emotion is always there. I don’t follow sports like I used to, but it seems like if they finish their season out strong that they could be playing on this court again to start the tournament. That would be just fine with me.