As soon as they saw the lists, the trash talk was on.
The Auburn volleyball team was split up into an orange squad and a blue squad for last Sunday’s preseason scrimmage in Neville Arena, and the players were told the night before who’d be on which team.
“You should’ve seen our group chats. It was going crazy,” Eden Bower smiled.
It was just an intra-squad, but the Tigers did as much as they could to get as much out of it as they could. The real regular season doesn’t start until Aug. 28. Auburn’s preseason match with Georgia Tech on Thursday night was also only an exhibition.
But the Tigers have already been trying to compete at full throttle for weeks. Some healthy smack talk before a scrimmage raises the stakes — and raised stakes makes even a practice more productive. Ultimately, the players know what’s coming down the line: “Especially in the SEC, games are going to get heated,” is how senior setter Shanelle Puetz put it earlier this preseason.
It’s a good thing, then, that this particular Auburn team likes competition as much as it does.
Where another squad might burn itself out by burning the candle on all ends, or where other players may become uncomfortable with each other after being at each other’s throats for a long time, Auburn head coach Brent Crouch said this particular team just happens to really like competition, and not just on gamedays.
“It’s a really good group,” Crouch said. “They all compete really hard and then they get along when they get off the court. That’s what you want. You want them to kill each other in practice and then love each other off the court,” he laughed.
Position battles
Fierce position battles have been the main focus of Auburn’s preseason practices: