Hoosiers focus on attitude, desire

The volleyball team is giving itself a makeover. After a dismal 3-7 start in Big Ten play, the Hoosiers have started making changes, both in their line up and their attitude.\nIU opened the second half of the season with a loss against No. 23 Michigan State Friday night and a win against Michigan Saturday night. Despite the lack of energy and enthusiasm the Hoosiers showed against the Spartans, the intensity IU had against the Wolverines is the same the Hoosiers expect to carry throughout the remainder of the season.\n"What we were doing wasn't working," senior outside hitter Amanda Welter said. "So we needed to change things up. It's important do this because it brings more out of a player. It felt good to find it again: the excitement, getting riled up like we did (against Michigan), going after a team as opposed to just sitting back."\nSome athletic teams go back to the basics when they're stuck in a hole, but the Hoosiers have taken the opposite direction.\nIU started with the basics because of the seven freshmen on the team, but somewhere along the way, teaching competitiveness and playing with heart was forgotten.\nThat's about to change.\n"We had to start with a very teaching-style format at the beginning of the year," coach Katie Weismiller said. "Halfway through the season, we switched gears. No longer could we constantly break down and teach, but we focused more on competition. The team now knows that they have to perform and be accountable for their actions."\nThe team began its transition with the lineup by using different substitutions. The starting lineup has some new faces. Freshman outside hitter Monique Pritz has earned a starting position, while former starter freshman middle blocker Melissa Brewer has become a substitute. Senior defensive specialist Joanne Amstutz has been making more frequent appearances in the games.\n"I know I push myself a lot harder in practice now because I want to get back in there," Brewer said. "We needed to change things up, and (the change was made) because we needed some leadership out there, some people who are more used to doing it. It's seemed to work so far."\nBut the main theme of the transformation is learning to play with heart and to play on a higher level of competition.\nIn practice, the team has been called out more for its mistakes, and consequences have been paid. If a player has a bad pass, the result is running laps, doing push-ups or sit-ups.\nWeismiller has made it clear that at any moment, any member of the team has the talent to play, and she has backed the statement up by the substitutions she has used in the games. \nIn addition to Pritz and Amstutz, freshman setter Beth Heimann has started the past few matches, and freshman outside hitter Adria Phillips has entered the game on occasion.\nThis strategy proved to be fruitful, as the team showed new life Saturday night, and the Hoosiers said they are aware they need to keep the enthusiasm.\n"At the beginning of the season we were so focused on doing it right," sophomore outside hitter Hillary Toivonen said. "But now that we have the physical aspects down, we need to work more on the mental. We are working a lot more on the heart, the desire, wanting to win and wanting to be out there. In practice we've been doing a lot of competitive drills to get our competitive edge back, rather than just going out and playing"