After winning its season opener against Kent State, the MSU volleyball team is preparing to host the 10th annual Spartan Invitational, where Wichita State (2-1) will be its first opponent.
Joining MSU and Wichita State will be Ball State (2-0) and South Florida (0-0).
MSU head coach Cathy George showed the team last year's game footage against Wichita State, when they won three games to two games. Despite the win, she still pointed out some things the team could have done better. ?
"We have to execute better within our roles, so when we're playing team defense we need to make sure that we're taking care of our area and that we don't go into other people's areas," George said. "We need to play a little bit better team defense.
"We need to be a little sharper on our response abilities and eliminate some of the unforced errors that were made."
The No. 1 ranked preseason Wichita State will be looking to bounce back from a loss to Stephen F. Austin in the Houston Tournament.
Last year, the Shockers made history by winning the Missouri Valley Conference regular season, giving the school its first title.
Returning player Jen Ray, who was recently named to the Preseason All-Valley team, leads the Shockers with a .372 hitting percentage, while adding 2.48 kills and 1.23 blocks per game.
Senior middle blocker Megan Wallin, took some notes of her own from the video. Even though she had a career-best 18 kills and six digs against the Shockers, she felt that wasn't her best performance.
"After watching the tape from this past weekend, I'm going to try and fix my blocking and also try to speed up my approach," Wallin said.
Sophomore outside hitter Ashley Schatzle said her goal is too be healthy after surgery in December on her shoulder, but added that the team's main focus is getting ready for the game on Thursday.
Ball State is coming off a weekend that saw them win the Nike/Active Ankle Weekend title and they also had setter Angie Parrell named Mid-American Conference, or MAC, West Division Volleyball Player of the Week.
South Florida has yet to play and after finishing last season with an 9-20 record, the players will be looking to start their season right at the MSU Invitational. Middle blocker Flavia Silveira led the team last year in kills per game with 4.18 and .228 hitting percentage.
George still wants to take it one match at a time and says it would be going against the team's goals to start talking about winning this weekend's tournament.
"If we take care (of) Wichita State then our next match will be South Florida and then we go into our next one with Ball State," George said.
"Once we take care of that we can worry about the championship. We believe the rewards will come from us doing our parts every night."
