Over the course of any collegiate volleyball game, so many players sub in and out that often times fans fail to take note that a new player has come in. But for Wisconsin Badger fans, it's hard not to notice when senior middle blocker Amy Bladow takes the court. Whether it's because she's crushing defenses across the net with her powerful attacks, shouting out signals to her teammates, or simply because she has decided to change her hair color as she often does, everyone knows when Bladow is in the game and ready to play.
""She just brings so much energy and so much life to the game,"" senior outside hitter Maria Carlini said of her teammate. ""She always makes everyone around her play so much better.""
Bladow came to Wisconsin four years ago from Monument, Colo., where she was ranked as one of the top 12 high school middle blockers in the nation by Student Sports Magazine. Straight out of the prep scene and into the NCAA limelight, UW head coach Pete Waite inserted Bladow into the starting lineup her freshman year.
""I probably saw her play for the first time in Kansas City in a big club tournament,"" Waite said. ""We heard she was a great athlete, a good size player, a tough player, but she was playing on a lower-level team. So any time you see that, you're kind of taking a risk in seeing how fast they can develop for the Division I game. She came in and started as a freshman—there was just a spot open and she had it and she was there all freshman year.""
Her efforts as a freshman landed her on the 2003 Big Ten All-Freshman Team. However, with the addition of the stellar freshman class of 2004, Bladow found herself in the midst of a lot of talent and suddenly jockeying for playing time after losing her starting position to current junior middle blocker Taylor Reineke.
""Sophomore and junior year she really had to earn her time on the court and was the first sub in off the bench in the middle blocking position,"" Waite added. ""And by the end of junior year, she was pretty sick of that. She decided to work a lot harder, she raised her level up last spring in our practices to the point where she just was not going to be denied that spot, and that was impressive because she had to make some personal changes, and she did a great job.""
Bladow has certainly stepped up her play, and only seven games into the season, her impact on the court has been profound. In addition to starting 22 of 23 games in seven matches, Bladow is currently the team leader in blocks with 35 and her .301 hitting percentage is second on the team for players with more than 10 kill attempts. Last weekend, Bladow demonstrated arguably her greatest match performance of the year thus far against UW-Milwaukee, where her 10-kill, eight-block, 15- point performance and exceptional leadership on the court earned her the MVP title at the 2006 Pepsi Panther Invitational.
""I think that we played really well as a team,"" Bladow said of last weekend's performance in Milwaukee. ""We passed really well, and we served really well, and that made it really easy for Jackie to run the middle, which is where I come in. But I think that my MVP award is directly related to the play of all of my teammates, and it doesn't so much have to do with me. It's a reflection of how we played as a team this weekend.""
""This weekend in Milwaukee, Amy really stepped up her game. She was more consistent and working harder and swinging better then we've seen her all season,"" Waite said. ""She's gaining more confidence. She was really working hard at being a team leader whether she was on the court or stepped off on the sideline. She was loud and aggressive and kept everybody in the game, so we were real pleased with her efforts and proud that she made MVP.""
With Big Ten games looming less than two weeks away, Bladow will be turning all of her energy toward making this last year with the Badgers one to remember. Along with senior team captain Katie Lorenzen and senior co-assistant captain Maria Carlini, Bladow wants to lead this year's team further than the Elite Eight appearances that the Badgers finished their season with the past two years.
""I think that being a senior—and every player goes through this regardless of the sport they play— there's that urgency to win, like this is your last chance to do something really great,"" Bladow said. ""And I don't think that so much translates as pressure, just that we need to come in the gym every day and work hard. It's more of a motivation and more of a way to keep us focused, and I think it's great that me and Katie and Maria are all feeling the same thing. I think we're all on the same page, and I think that we're trying really hard to translate that to the rest of the girls on the team.""
