Team travels across country for tournament

The IU volleyball team left to travel across the country Thursday to The Loyola Marymount Invitational -- a tournament they could not be more excited about.\n"I've never been to California," said sophomore Melissa Brewer, "I'm very excited. Hopefully we'll have some free time to look around and this trip should give us a chance to regroup."\nFreshman Carla Crose said the team is looking to see what it can accomplish.\n"For the tournament we need to work some kinks out first," Crose said. "We're really focusing, during practice, the things we need to improve on."\nSophomore Nicole Hill said many players acted individually this past weekend in the Blimpie/Holiday Inn Tournament.\n"This weekend I think we will come together more as a team," Hill said, "We have great team chemistry off the court, we just need it more on the court too."\nCoach Katie Weismiller said the team needs to play more aggressively.\n"If we can play aggressive and if we can play to win, we can be a good team," Weismiller said. "If we play not to lose, that is when we struggle. That has to be the attitude of this team, we play for every point, and we play to win."\nThe Hoosiers' first match is against Loyola Marymount University; a match that most players believe could determine their confidence for the rest of the weekend. The 24th-ranked LMU has a record of 1-1.\n"We obviously need to pick it up from this past weekend," Hill said. "Everybody was disappointed in that. But we still have high goals and expectations for ourselves set for this weekend. We've had a goal since last year to beat LMU."\nWeismiller said the team is working on being aggressive when serving.\nCrose said LMU would be their toughest match but not to underestimate what the team can do.\n "LMU is really good, but if we can come in with the right attitude we can do anything we put our minds to," Crose said. "We have a really good chance if we play really strong against them."\n Saturday at noon, the Hoosiers will take on Arizona State (1-3).\n "ASU is a very good team," Weismiller said. "Look at our record, we're 1-2 and we're a really good team as well. Arizona State is going to be a fight, but if we work hard against Arizona State, or even LMU, it will all fall into place for us."\nThe final match of the weekend will be against the University of New Mexico. The Lobos are 2-1.\n"This weekend will give us a chance to prove to people that we are really a good team and that we've worked hard this week in practice," Brewer said. "We're going to turn this season around right away. We're going to play good competition. Hopefully we'll come out of this weekend with wins and it will help our confidence a lot"