Ward Sutlive, Campus Carrier asst. sports editor

Both Berry College’s football and volleyball teams are now nationally ranked. The football team was ranked for the first three weeks of the season, before spending the next two weeks unranked. After beating Trinity College on Oct. 11, the football team was ranked once again.  The team also won the conference championship this weekend, winning against the Maryville Scots. The volleyball team had two games this past Saturday. The first game was against Randolph-Macon College, which they won with a score of 3-0 The second game was against Emory University, which they lost , leading to a final score of 1-3. The football team was ranked 17th in the D-III football rankings. The volleyball team was ranked 19th in the AVCA ranking.

The Volleyball team finds being ranked to be very rewarding.

“It really feels like an accomplishment,” senior Andrea Hurt, a player and junior libero for the volleyball team, said. “And I think we worked really hard to get back to the point where we are now.” 

There are four different polls that determine football rankings. They are D-III Football, D-III Football Huddle, American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) and the National Power Index (NPI), which is used for the playoffs. A collection of coaches and athletic administrators vote in each poll. The better that certain teams do, the higher they are ranked.  Tony Kunczewski, head coach of the football team, doesn’t put too much emphasis on the rankings system. 

“Those rankings mean nothing until the season is over,” Kunczewski said.

For volleyball, there are two main polls: the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) and the NPI. The AVCA poll has 25 spots for teams to be ranked. Much like the AFCA, the AVCA is made up of coaches and athletic administrators.  

“The AVCA poll has a lot to do with the amount that you’re winning and the level of wins,” Hurt said.

According to Hurt, while the AVCA has  merit, the NPI is the most important poll for the team. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) uses this model in order to determine which teams will be in the playoffs. Teams earn points in the NPI by certain factors such as the strength of a team’s  schedule, and their win-loss percentage. 

Morale has been high for both teams ever since they were ranked. Kunczewski believes that the staff that he works with as well as the players that he coaches have been a major reason for this season’s ranking. Kunczewski has worked with his fellow coaches for four seasons, and that continuity and rapport that they have built up have helped with their coaching. 

“We’re fortunate that our coaching staff has done such a great job [of] recruiting,” Kunczewski said.

According to Kunczewski, the team’s players have a good culture by being encouraging towards one another. The standouts are the team’s senior leaders who are skilled at helping the younger members improve their tactics and strategies. 

“You can be the greatest coach in the world, [but] if you don’t have any good players, then it doesn’t matter,” Kunczewski said. 

Moriarty believes that one of the main reasons behind her team’s current success is their ability to perform well under pressure. According to Moriarty, her team does a great job of using the stress that comes from the intense pressure of games as an incentive to play harder. The volleyball team is also good at challenging themselves and going beyond their own personal bests, in part due to the rigorous practices that the team has. 

“Our team is trained in a way where there’s a lot of pressure just to prepare them for the real thing,” Moriarty said.  

The football and volleyball teams both have their own unique ways of training. On Sunday, the day after their most recent game, the football team meets up and watches film reels of their previous game. They do this so that Kunczewski can critique his players’ performance and figure out how to improve the way they play. After that, the players lift weights and do running exercises. They then usually spend their day off on Monday taking care of schoolwork, and resume practice     on Tuesday. 

“A lot of our guys are science majors, [so] they can do all of their labs on Monday,” Kunczewski said.

The volleyball team does a drill called 2020, which is a six-on-six game. Each team starts with a score of 20. When a player scores, a point is deducted from the team’s score. If a player makes a mistake, that team’s score goes back to 20. The purpose of this game is to train the players to finish sets. 

“We can’t afford to be making unforced errors at the end of matches,” Hurt said.

Both teams are also eagerly anticipating this season’s upcoming playoffs. However, each team needs to win their respective next games in the conference championships in order to be eligible for the playoffs. The volleyball team will have to beat Rhodes College this evening in Atlanta. The football team will be going up against Southwestern University this Saturday, in Georgetown Texas. Kunczewski is taking things one step at a time. 

“We’re not thinking about the playoffs,” Kunczewski said. “Because if we don’t win this week, then we’re not going to be in the playoffs.”