Starting Friday, the known O-Zone fan section for basketball and football games is expanding its membership to include the women's volleyball team and inviting everyone.
An hour before the start of the Bobcats' contest with Ball State, a booth will be set up on The Convo floor and welcome fans to be the founding members of the Ohio women's volleyball O-Zone.
The booth will be giving away official O-Zone t-shirts and plenty of pizza before a meet and greet with coach Geoff Carlston.
After we feed everyone
I will sit down and address the group and thank them for all coming and let them know that they will be the founding members of the volleyball O-Zone Carlston said. We will do everything with in our ability to keep that group together whether throwing a majority of the stuff into that area
feeding them or finding a way to get them to the conference tournament.
One would think it would not take much to get fans to come watch the now No. 24 team in the nation according to the recent CSTV/AVCA Top 25 Poll, but to top off the O-Zone's deal - it's free to join.
Along with the O-Zone's beginning, a lucky fan could walk out with a thousand bucks thanks to Larry Conrath Realty - another giveaway inducing fans to support the Bobcats.
We just want to build up the excitement factor and get a fun
boisterous group of students to come out and make it fun for us to play at home
Carlston said. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to get over 2
000 fans here a match; it is doable
but it is going to have to come from the students.
While attendance has been around 800 people each game, the team would like to see it grow. Other top volleyball schools like Hawaii and Penn State average upwards around 8,000 and 4,000, respectively.
Coach wants us at the top and be the elite of the MAC in attendance
so our goal is to do that
middle blocker Julia Winkfield said. The crowd really helps so the O-Zone will be cool for us to have
anything to get more students at the games.
Teammate Stephanie Blackburn said the O-Zone will be beneficial to the team in many ways.
I'm really excited for the O-Zone; I love the home games because of the atmosphere and all the fans
