TERRE HAUTE —
Reflecting on the 151⁄2 seasons since her hiring in 1996, which came soon after Rose-Hulman started admitting female students, Brenda Goble thinks she has improved as the only volleyball coach in the engineering institute’s history.
“I feel like I’ve softened up a lot,” Goble told the Tribune-Star recently. “At a place like Rose-Hulman, you have to find ways to bend and give-and-take with the student-athletes. I never was that coach [who treated players disrespectfully]. I never cursed at players. I don’t grab them by the throat or throw clipboards or chairs… We’ve evolved together, I believe.”
Goble’s year-by-year records seem to back up her last statement.
This season, for example, the Engineers are 12-6 overall. They’re threatening to break the school mark for most victories in a season (20 set in 2009) and they recently notched the 200th win in program history. They’ve still never won a conference championship, but they’re hoping that will change in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) in 2011.
“We have more depth and more athleticism than ever before,” Goble explained. “We have 11 returnees… It’s the first time ever that we’ve had so many student-athletes deciding to come back and compete for a position or to be out on the court.”
Early in Goble’s career, there were lean years — 3-16 in 1996, 6-31 in 1998 and 7-34 in 2005 to name a few — but she never let them get her down mentally.
“It’s hard to start a program from scratch and that’s what we’ve done here at Rose-Hulman with all of our women’s programs,” she emphasized. “It hasn’t been easy. It doesn’t just happen overnight… The recent achievement of 200 wins for the volleyball program, my hat goes off to every single alum who worked so hard — practicing, competing, whether we won or lost — to build the program from nothing.”
There were some seasons when Goble had only seven or eight players on the roster. This season, the Engineers have 17.
“Over the years, we’ve gotten better athletes,” she mentioned. “We’ve gotten more females on campus with an interest in playing volleyball.”
Even with that increased interest, dedication to academics has not declined. In 2009 and 2010, the players’ outstanding grade-point averages earned Rose inclusion on the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Academic All-American teams. During the 2010-11 school year, its team GPA was 3.478.
Remember, Rose-Hulman doesn’t offer basket weaving as one of its courses either.
Much credit for Rose’s recent successes on and off the court goes to its three seniors — 6-foot middle hitter/right side Karah Hickman, 6-2 middle hitter/right side Morgan Williams (tallest player on the team) and 5-9 defensive specialist/outside hitter Leah Pelzel — who are all biomedical-engineering majors. During Rose-Hulman’s previous seasons since they arrived as freshmen in 2008, records have been 18-15, 20-13 and 19-10.
“We came ready to work and make a change in the program,” Williams assessed. “We had backgrounds and positions that maybe the team needed at that time. We came from some pretty good high school teams.”
“I think the coaches are doing a really good job of recruiting,” Pelzel pointed out. “They’ve gotten a lot of girls here who came from really strong high school programs. Out of us seniors, I know we all came from strong high school programs, like my team won state when I was in high school [at Mount Notre Dame in Loveland, Ohio].”
“I think we’ve been getting more and more skilled classes coming in [since 2008],” Hickman added. “That’s helped us improve. And when you start getting winning records, more people [such as potential high school recruits] look at us as a more serious team.”
Goble said her primary goal for the immediate future is to keep her players “healthy and happy.”
“I know with this group of individuals, the sky is the limit,” she continued. “If we can keep them healthy and happy and they keep buying in to what’s working for us … the sky is the limit for this group.”
During separately conducted interviews, the three seniors all mentioned an HCAC championship as a goal.
“My goal is to win conference and I think that is most everyone’s goal on this team,” Pelzel said. “It would be great to host the conference tournament [which would require winning the regular-season title first] and move on to the NCAA [Division III] tournament.”
“I think we have a really good shot at winning conference,” Williams echoed. “We have a lot of really strong players this year… That’s something we’re aiming for right now.”
“I really think we can win conference,” Hickman stressed. “We have a really strong team. If we just play like we know we can and we know we’re able to, I think we can go really far.”
Goble also would not object to capturing the HCAC crown, but that won’t be the make-or-break factor for determining if this ends up as a successful season.
“It would be great,” she acknowledged. “But as long as my girls get out there and give 100 percent, I will not be disappointed with any outcome.
“I hope we make the conference tournament [consisting of the top six teams from the regular season]. You can’t put the cart before the horse. I really am a firm believer in where you take one match at a time and that’s exactly what this group has bought into.”
Rose will return to action Saturday when it plays host to conference foe Hanover, starting at 1:30 p.m.
The Engineers, who lost at Transylvania last Saturday, trail Defiance (3-0), Mount St. Joseph (3-0) and Transylvania (2-0) in the HCAC standings, while Hanover and Bluffton are tied with Rose-Hulman at 2-1.
Rose-Hulman
Goble has built solid program at Rose-Hulman
- Rose-Hulman
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Rose-Hulman swimmers flying to nationals
Rose-Hulman swimmers John Craig Huster and Orion Martin have qualified for the Division III national meet in the 100 butterfly
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Despite four NCAA Division III titles, Rose-Hulman’s Liz Evans remains as driven as ever
Even though Rose-Hulman senior Liz Evans has won four NCAA Division III titles in the women’s high jump, getting motivated is still easy for her.
Ultra-competitive athletes find ways. -
Balsbaugh’s late-season scoring giving Rose-Hulman a lift
If someone were to predict before last weekend that Rose-Hulman would capture its second straight Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference championship in men’s basketball and that senior Brenton Balsbaugh would be named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player, fans probably would believe the first statement but consider the second as wishful thinking.
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Rose-Hulman baseball team kicking off season in Florida
Jeff Jenkins is serious about his baseball.
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Rose-Hulman men clinch conference title
Rose-Hulman will host the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament and claimed the league’s regular-season title with a 59-57 win at Hanover College on Saturday.
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No. 23 Rose-Hulman takes down No. 22 Transylvania on the road
No. 23 ranked Rose-Hulman claimed a two-game lead in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference men’s basketball standings with a 54-49 victory at No. 22 Transylvania University on Saturday.
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Rose-Hulman 18-2 after pulling away from Anderson
Rose-Hulman opened the second half on a 20-3 run to pull away and earn a convincing 71-40 men’s basketball victory at Anderson University on Wednesday night.
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Freshman paces Engineer women to HCAC win
The Rose-Hulman women’s basketball team improved to 10-10 for the season and 6-7 in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference play with a 52-44 win over Anderson on Wednesday in Hulbert Arena.
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Rose men top Franklin
Rose-Hulman improved to 14-2 overall and kept its Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference lead at 8-1 with a 58-42 men's basketball victory at Franklin College on Wednesday night.
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Rose men run winning steak to 11 games
Anderson arrived in Terre Haute with a 7-6 record and a scoring average of 76.5 points per game.
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Anderson holds off rally by Rose women
Rose-Hulman rallied from an 11-point deficit to close within three points late, but Anderson University held on to earn a 64-57 victory in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference women’s basketball Wednesday night inside O.C. Lewis Gymnasium.
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Rose-Hulman men ranked 26th in Division III
Rose-Hulman’s men’s basketball team is ranked 26th nationally in the d3hoops.com national weekly poll released on Thursday.
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Gerken hits game-winner to put Rose-Hulman at 9-1 on season
Making the game-winning shot, with what turned out to be seven-tenths of a second to go, was probably the easy part for Jon Gerken on Saturday afternoon in Hulbert Arena.
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Rose women struggle from field in loss to Hanover
In the Rose-Hulman women’s college basketball game, frigid shooting undermined good work the Engineers did in other aspects of the game against Hanover.
The Engineers came out on the wrong end, 55-43. -
Efficient Engineers stifle Millikin
The word that probably best describes the Rose-Hulman men’s basketball team is efficiency.
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Rose-Hulman women's basketball regains Clabber Girl Trophy
Rose-Hulman reclaimed the Clabber Girl Trophy for the first time since 2009 with an 80-74 women’s basketball victory over Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College on Tuesday night in Hulbert Arena.
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Balanced Rose tops Fontbonne
Senior forward Nate Gissentanner came off the bench to deliver 14 points for balanced Rose-Hulman in a 72-54 men’s basketball victory over Fontbonne University on Wednesday night in Hulbert Arena.
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Rose-Hulman men's basketball preview: Engineers looking to follow up last year’s success
It’s pretty safe to say that expectations for the Rose-Hulman men’s basketball team have not been this high since the late 1990s when the Engineers reached the NCAA Division III tournament three times within a four-year period.
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Rose-Hulman women's basketball preview: Engineers continuing to improve
The Rose-Hulman women’s basketball team didn’t dominate many opponents last season when it ended up with records of 9-18 overall and 6-12 in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference.
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Earlham tragedy leads to Rose football cancellation
Little did Rose-Hulman’s football players and coaches know, their 42-8 home victory over Anderson University last Saturday turned out to be their final game of the season.
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This weekend's Rose-Hulman vs. Earlham football game canceled
Due to Friday's tragic events involving three Earlham College students, the football game between Earlham and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has been canceled.
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Anderson squeaks past Rose-Hulman
Anderson University scored in the 11th minute and held off a Rose-Hulman charge to earn a 1-0 men's soccer victory in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference semifinal match on Wednesday night at the Engineer Intramural Field.
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Rose swimmers near top because of vets, youth
Rose-Hulman swimming depth is at an all-time high, putting the Engineers at No. 15 in the NCAA Division III national rankings.
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A bigger taste?
On the night of Oct. 14, Rose-Hulman basketball fans were treated to something described by a couple of men’s players as “spectacular” and “epic” when they all jammed into Hulbert Arena for the insititute’s first “Midnight Madness” to tip off a season.
The memorable site wasn’t a 360-degree dunk or a no-look, behind-the-back pass.
It was Rose men’s coach Jim Shaw performing the “Bernie Dance,” based on the deceased character from the 1989 movie “Weekend At Bernie’s.”
“For a second, I thought he was having a seizure,” senior starting guard Austin Weatherford said with a straight face later. -
Rose women picked for 6th
The Rose-Hulman women’s basketball team has been picked to finish sixth in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference this season, according to a preseason poll of league coaches released Tuesday.
Hanover and Franklin were selected for first and second respectively, with just two poll points separating the two squads. -
Rose-Hulman no match for Franklin
Franklin showcased its No. 23 NCAA Division III ranking from d3football.com in a 56-0 victory over Rose-Hulman in Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference football Saturday.
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Rose blanks Woods 3-0 in women’s soccer
Rose-Hulman women’s soccer coach Amy Helliwell is riding a youth movement to what she hopes could produce a strong turnaround in this 2012 season.
It has so far.
Led by freshman Hayley Gilliam, a Zionsville native, the Engineers improved to 5-4-1 for the season with a dominant 3-0 victory against cross-county rival St. Mary-of-the-Woods College on Wednesday at Jim Rendel Field. -
METRO ROUNDUP: Engineers dominate HCAC honors
Rose-Hulman Institute student-athletes earned three Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Week awards, in results released by the league office on Monday.
West Vigo graduate John Burt was named HCAC Defensive Player of the Week and Eric Schaible the Special Teams Player of the Week in football, and B.J. Thompson earned Player of the Week honors in men’s soccer.
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Snyder throws for two early TDs in Rose-Hulman victory
Rose-Hulman scored 33 points in the middle two quarters and held off a Defiance rally to earn a 33-20 victory in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference football opener for both schools Saturday.
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Rose’s record setter
Kyle Kovach got off to a great start in Rose-Hulman’s football season opener Saturday night in what turned out to be a heartbreaking 29-28 home loss to Kalamazoo College at Cook Stadium.
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