Fans push team to fight for old IU

The games this weekend for the volleyball team were intense. Fans came to the Blimpie/Holiday Inn Classic at Assembly Hall wearing red and white to support the team.\n"Point Indiana!" said the announcer. The crowd followed with an enthusiastic, "point Indiana!"\n"If you come out to one volleyball match you usually come back," coach Katie Weismiller said after a disappointing loss to Tennessee in the final match of the tournament. \nWhile the basketball and football teams have no problem drawing in thousands to their games, the volleyball team realizes they have to give fans a reason to come and cheer. This season the volleyball team hopes to break attendance records. \n"I think winning is obviously going to help," Weismiller said. "Once we get back on a winning curve and students hear about it, more fans will come out. We're really hoping to get some new people out there."\nThe crowd is another souce of motivation for the team, said sophomore Melissa Brewer.\n"We worked pretty hard for this weekend to get a lot of fans to come," Brewer said. "In the past week we went to dorms and handed out flyers, and we've done the entire poster day, where we go around town and hand out schedules."\nBrewer also said it's nice out on the court to look out and see so many people, especially when they play at a large venue such as Assembly Hall. Following play on Saturday, members of the team and staff said there were many unfulfilled expectations.\n"The fans this weekend were great," Weismiller said. "That was one of the things that was difficult for us because we count on our fans so much and we didn't give them a whole lot to be excited about today. They were still great fans though and are still in it for us."\nKyle Muehlbauer, a freshman, offered his own opinion on what the Hoosiers need to do to be successful.\n"What happened this weekend was they needed to block more and communicate on the court," Muehlbauer said. "The communication needs to be there to win." \n Fans may have found it hard to avoid the cheering section of about 10 male students at the final game on Saturday night. They were heard yelling out cheers and singing the school fight song to pump up the Hoosiers.\n "I read somewhere that Indiana University has some of the poorest fan support in the Big Ten for sports like volleyball," said freshman Mark Osborne. "We're just trying to change that."\nThese energetic freshmen cheered even when the team wasn't playing to their full potential.\n"We want to intimidate teams when they play here." Muehlbauer said. "We want to make them afraid to play at IU because Indiana's fans are so supportive and so great"