Nov. 5, 2012

Get an inside look at the Stanford women's volleyball team each week. In this edition, freshman Brittany Howard talks about Halloween and the team's trip to Oregon.

Hey Stanford fans,

I'm currently sitting in the Eugene airport still sweating from running to make the bus! This is what happens when your airport departure time is changed from 6:30 to 6 at about 5:52. An appropriate ending to a very crazy, exciting week! This week was really fun before our travels even began!

Last Saturday night we met up with the men's volleyball team all dressed in costume. We are each other's biggest fans on and off the court so it was fun to all hang out. The school week started and it wasn't easy, we're in the heart of midterms, so we were all busy studying whenever we could; some girls even had to take their midterms after practice. But halfway through the week things started to look up. As you all know Wednesday was Halloween (which is my all time favorite holiday) and we got to dress up for practice! Our costumes consisted of Mario and Luigi, Mrs. Potato Head, Top Gun, a Power Ranger, Andre Agassi, Brian Wilson, Gumby, a Siamese cat, and many, many more.

Dressing up is an annual tradition and we also go "trick or treating" before practice starts. We started by walking through the men's basketball practice - they were all really confused and didn't know what was going on. On our way to the athletic offices we passed by both the football offensive and defensive special teams and also got a lot of weird looks. Then we finally made our way to the athletic offices and got a big thumbs up from our athletic director, Bernard Muir, which is always exciting. We made our way back to the gym and had a really great practice and all knew we were ready for the big weekend ahead of us.

We traveled to Oregon and came home with two wins under our belt that we battled for despite some hardships. After Sunday's match was especially fun for me because I have a few close friends that go to the University of Oregon, so I got to celebrate with them. After a quick flight home, a good night's rest, we're back in the gym prepping for this weeks matches! We hope to see everyone in Maples on Wednesday and Thursday!