STORY BY CARLY GRENFELL

What a ride it has been with a 9-0 start to conference play after beating Wichita State, with whom we shared the top spot of the Missouri Valley Conference.

After losing Kyndal Clark, the 2013-2014 MVC Player of the Year, a start of this capacity is not what many people predicted. But we knew what our team was capable of all along. When one of your own goes down for the count, family comes together. Instead of sitting back and making excuses, our circumstances fueled us and continue to fuel us in more ways than we can name.

The last time Drake Women’s Basketball started out conference play 9-0 was 1998. While the buzz it has created is so much fun to be a part of, this journey is far from over. We aren’t done yet.

We have a team that is not satisfied with what we have accomplished thus far. That, my friends, is so important at this point in the year. We could be happy with being number one in the league and walk around like we own the place, but that is the last thing on our minds. We face off with every opponent one more time around and then it’s go-time.

Every day we talk about being 1-0. We want to win every practice, every shootaround and every game with continuous improvement. When that happens, winning takes care of itself.

At first glance, keeping our team motivated may seem like a challenging task. I can promise you our motivation is going to get better every single day. We want to beat teams more than we did the first time. We want to stay number one. It’s as simple as that. We have come way too far to settle for 9-0.

Beyond the x’s and o’s, playing for Drake University means something.

It is one thing to stay motivated so we can continue to win games, but nothing pushes us more than the name on the front of our jerseys. Stay tuned folks, there’s much more to come from Drake Women’s Basketball.

Carly Grenfell can be reached at [email protected] and @car1y_g