Coming into the fall 2012 season, expectations were tempered for the Indiana Wesleyan University women’s volleyball team. Yes, it would be good, and possibly contend for the Crossroads League Championship, but it would not compare to the 2011 team that finished with 36 wins against just six losses and featured a host of extremely gifted seniors.

But boy, did the Wildcats prove those expectations wrong.

With an overall record of 35 wins and two losses thus far, heading into the NAIA National Championships, the team ran roughshod through the Crossroads League, winning both the league and tournament titles.

Head coach Candace Moats was pleasantly surprised with her team’s success this season.

“I knew I had student athletes coming back that had high-level skills, but I was reflecting more on who I lost than who I had,” Moats said. “I was really surprised by the performance, even in the first weekend [going 4-0 in the Lee Invitational]. We went out with the desire and hope that we would be a good team and pull together.”

And a good team they became, thanks to an unwavering desire to achieve their three intangible team goals.

“No. 1 was to build and maintain a cohesive spirit within our team. The second one was to be selfless leaders, especially within our upperclassmen and those who had gone to the Athletic Department Leadership Summit,” said Moats. “Our third goal was to play and work really hard.”

Setter Yui Iwase (sr) thought the attention to these goals played a big role in the team’s success.

“We all came into preseason ready to go. I think we really had our eyes on the prize with our goals,” Iwase said. “[This season] has exceeded my expectations, not that I had low expectations by any means, but I think our record shows the hard work we’ve put into it, so we’re just reaping the benefits of that.”

Moats said the little things the team did throughout the season were also big factors in their success.

“As a student athlete, it takes a lot more work off the court to manage your sleeping habits, your nutrition and your academics,” Moats said. “We think that those tangible things that you always wish for will come if you do the intangible things like taking care of yourself and your character.”

Middle blocker Kristin Predajna (fr) has enjoyed being on a team that is not only skilled, but cares about the intangibles like team chemistry and cohesiveness.

“My teammates give me good advice, and if I’m down, they give me support,” said Predajna. “Stine [middle hitter Kristine Egebrecht] gives me great advice, and the other upperclassmen also help me with when and where to hit the ball.”

As for the NAIA Nationals starting Nov. 17, the main tangible goal the No. 7-ranked Wildcats are focused on is getting out of pool play, which requires placing in the top two teams of the four-team pool. Last year, the team failed to get out of their pool. But Moats is hopeful that this year will be different.

“We have an advantage this year because we are going back, and we can’t claim this to be our first experience. We now understand what has to be done,” Moats said.

The Wildcats are seeded second in their pool, and are slated to make it into tournament play.

As Iwase put it, “I don’t think the goal of getting out of pool play is too far out there at all.”

But like the rest of their season, winning games isn’t the only thing the Wildcats are concerned with doing at Nationals. Moats has the team thinking bigger.

“Obviously, we would like to keep our poise as we are playing. We would like to keep a strong witness for the Lord as we have tried to do every match,” Moats said. “And we definitely want to stay together as a team.”

Coming into the 2012 volleyball season ranked ninth in the country, the Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcats didn’t seem to have much to prove on paper. But after a historic 2011 campaign that saw the Wildcats make it to NAIA Nationals and achieve their previous high in the national rankings of No.13, anything less could be seen as a disappointment.

Making matters more difficult was the loss of four senior starters from last season and the departure of the national assistant coach of the year.

The odds seemed stacked against the Wildcats, until the team went out and upended the third-ranked team in the nation, Tennessee’s Lee College, on the first day of the season. IWU hasn’t looked back since, starting the new year 16-1, two games better than last year’s win total at this mark.

“Everything that the seniors worked hard to build up these past few years, we’re keeping it going and we’re going to further it,” said middle hitter Kristine Egebrecht (jr). “I think it’s a good kind of pressure, to make sure that you’re bringing everything you have every single day.”

“If I could say anything that we learned from last year that transfers to this year, it’s that we are all for one,” said head coach Candace Moats, in her 11th season with the team. “We are cohesively a tight team.”

But despite this, a start this fast wasn’t what anyone anticipated.

“I don’t know if we were necessarily expecting it, especially that early on,” said libero Rae Brandes (jr). “It’s very rare for a team to connect so early, but it’s been great so far connecting on the court, and off.”

“We were certainly surprised,” Moats added.

The Wildcats have been surprising many teams this season, not just themselves. IWU has notched victories against top-25 competition such as Lindsey Wilson (Ky.), Taylor and IU – East, as well as going undefeated so far this season on the road.

While team members are trying to limit the comparison with last year’s squad, 2011’s team has a clear impact on 2012.

“We definitely had strong leadership last year. It was good to come along underneath them and get mentored and just really watch what they did,” said setter Yui Iwase (sr). “This year has been definitely a learning experience in the fact that I’m a senior, but it’s been good. Last year was good preparation.”

As for how to replace the talent from last season, Iwase said it would happen “with other great people who’ve been sitting the bench since last year. It’s obvious if you watch any practice that everyone works hard. Our bench is so deep and so strong.”

Brandes has as much reason to feel the pressure as anyone, as she inherited the task of replacing graduate Kelsey Masuda, who in 2011 enjoyed one of the most impressive seasons in team history. But Brandes has already nabbed two libero-of-the-week awards in the Crossroads League, and said her mindset is to think more about this year than last.

“Honestly, I haven’t really thought about it that much; It’s not really what I focus on,” said Brandes. “It’s a lot more fun and more focused on the team.”

The Wildcats’ overall focus is on the next match, a conference contest against Bethel College to keep the team’s 15-game winning streak alive and continue toward another strong season.

Kelsey Masuda (sr) has come a long way since high school.

Literally.

She grew up near Tokyo, living in Japan until her freshman year of college at Indiana Wesleyan University, where the libero dominated the Wildcats’ volleyball court like no one else the school has ever seen.

But there’s so much more to her than just being the girl who wore the opposite-color jersey than her teammates. Masuda crochets, says she wants to write a book someday and is a self-proclaimed ninja.

And according to her coaches and teammates, she also has swagger.

“Kelsey embodied that so well because in her personality, she would never ever want to show anything but humility,” Wildcats’ coach Candace Moats said. “But that word gave her an outlet to find her way in that, ‘I am good and I’m going to go out there and I’m going to show that, but I’m going to have fun doing it.’”

“Swagger” is the term the Wildcat volleyball team used for its quiet confidence during the 2011 season, a campaign that saw IWU go 36-6 and make it all the way to the NAIA National Championship Tournament. As one of the team’s leaders and league’s most outstanding players, Masuda was a great example of that ideal.

“She did have that swag,” said Wildcat Becca Brandes (so). “She gained that confidence as we went through the year. She was a leader.”

Masuda didn’t always have those qualities, however. Ask her team about her growth in assertiveness and confidence, even over the last two seasons, and you’ll get the same message: She was good when she got here, but great when she left.

Coach Moats said that shift in mindset greatly improved her on-court performance during her junior and senior years.

“That self-efficacy about herself; believing that she could do it, just seeing that she could take our team somewhere and that she was a big role in that was definitely a part of the self-confident role that came with that,” Moats said. “I don’t think it would have come if she would have never let herself believe that she could achieve these things.”

“Kelsey is a little more quiet, obviously she comes from a different kind of culture, and she’s used to not pitting in her say as much,” Brandes added. “Throughout the year she became better at talking out loud and telling people what she was feeling; she gained so much confidence.”

Having been raised in Japan, a place where she says the culture is to naturally be less vocal in most respects, Masuda started at IWU with a plan to stay in the shadows.

“I never thought that coming in I could step out of being timid,” Masuda said. “I’ve always been confident in things that I do, but as far as having a voice and stepping out of that fear, I never thought I would be able to do that. Volleyball has allowed me to step up as a leader and have a voice.”

Masuda’s extensive journey, both geographically and in her growth, has been a long time coming. She went to a missionary school outside Tokyo, where she said most graduates come to the United States. Early on, Masuda had her sights set on California, “Because, you know, California is California,” she said. But when several of her friends headed for the Golden State, the independent Masuda began looking elsewhere. With a set of grandparents residing in Indianapolis, she began looking at Christian colleges in the area, including Taylor University, Bethel College and IWU.

IWU quickly jumped out from all the rest, thanks in large part to a meaningful conversation Masuda had with coach Moats during their first meeting.

“Coach grabbed me, and she got my heart,” Masuda said. “Everything is so much deeper, especially on my team and with Coach, the relationships are much deeper, the conversations are more transparent. It was really good for me, it changed my outlook on relationships.”

One unique relationship Masuda will take away from her Wildcat experience is with Moats. The two have continued past the end of the volleyball season and even play together on a YMCA co-ed team each week.

“I consider her my friend,” Masuda said. “We just talk all the time about everything stuff that’s going on in our lives, deep things, fun things. It’s not the type of coach-player relationship where it ends after you graduate.”

But things haven’t always been that easy for Masuda. While her mother is American, growing up in Japan and switching cultures as a teenager wasn’t as seamless a transition as she expected.

“I thought I knew what it meant to live in America, but I didn’t; I had to adapt really fast,” Masuda said. “In Japan, you hide a lot. You hide a lot of hurt, you hide a lot of struggle, but here, especially on my team and the girls that I am with, it’s just an open book and it was just really intense for me.”

Even little things like sense of humor changed dramatically.

“Japanese humor is very blunt and very physical humor as opposed to sarcasm. I would say things thinking they were funny, and I would offend people,” Masuda said. “It wasn’t bad offensive, it was just like, ‘Oh, that’s not funny here.’”

Once she figured everything out, however, it was no laughing matter for her opponents on the court.

In her four years playing for the Wildcats, Masuda tallied 2,451 digs and helped lead the 2012 senior class to a 107-63 record, including 888 digs during IWU’s historic 2011 run. Her senior season efforts earned her nine MCC Libero of the Week awards, the MCC Libero of the Year title and a spot on the NAIA All-American Third Team.

While it may have taken a while for her to build up that swagger and success, according to Moats, the potential for greatness was obvious in her from her first practice with the team. Masuda was just a recruit going through drills with the team when it came time to run five consecutive suicides, a feared exercise the team had been building up to for weeks. Coach Moats told Masuda she didn’t have to go all-out on the drill, but, as all of IWU would find out over the next four years, Masuda doesn’t do anything halfway.

“I don’t know what a sprint is like, to go easy on a sprint,” Masuda said. “If you’re not sprinting, you’re jogging. You don’t jog suicides.”

With none of the buildup the rest of the players had, Masuda did the five suicides and promptly walked over to the nearest trash can and threw up.

She looks back on the memory with a laugh.

“You want to put it all on the floor, and I literally did,” she said.

Masuda has come a long way. She admits that she still has a long way to go as well. As she prepares to graduate from IWU with degrees in computer graphics and business administration, her short-term goals are to move to Michigan in June, where she will do freelance photography work and nanny part-time. Long term, Masuda hopes to return to Japan to do missions work, with hopes of integrating art.

Moats said no matter what Masuda does, she will be successful at it because of her work ethic and heart for people.

“Wherever she goes, whatever she does, I know this: She’s going to love people, I know she’s going to work super hard at being the best she can be, and I know she’s going to love the Lord,” Moats said.

Masuda also wants to continue playing volleyball in some capacity. Show her a clip of the Wildcats’ MCC Tournament Championship victory over Taylor and her fire for the game ignites. But at the same time, Masuda is looking toward her future and the opportunities it holds.

“I miss it, I miss it a lot,” Masuda said. “The passion is still there; the desire to play volleyball is still there, but it’s shifting. I love the game, I still love the girls, but it’s not ahold of my heart anymore.”

Masuda has forever etched her name in the annals of IWU volleyball history. If her career with the Wildcats is any indication of how the rest of her life will go, she’ll continue to show her swagger no matter where the ball bounces.

He thinks he might have been 5-foot-10 since the day he was born. He grew up a self-diagnosed baseball knucklehead who eventually married an artist who doesn’t have one athletic bone in her body. To top it off, he fluently speaks a language he calls “ghetto.”

Steve Babinski is also the new Indiana Wesleyan University softball coach – the first one in more 24 years.

IWU Athletic Director Mark DeMichael hired Steve Babinski after longtime softball coach Sue Bowman retired from athletics in May of 2011. DeMichael said Babinski stood out above the other applicants because of his heart for sports as a ministry and his history of success.

Babinski played baseball for most of his life and was voted Grace College’s Athlete of the Year. He was a player on the team for four years and a paid assistant his fifth year.

Babinski worked as a paid assistant at Grace for one season, then moved on as an assistant coach at Bowling Green State University. From there, he was hired as head coach for the MidAmerica Nazarene ladies softball team, the Pioneers.

He now lives in Marion with his wife Rachel and their four children, Corianna, Alizzia, Benjamin and Emi to kick off his first season with IWU softball.

During his years with the Pioneers, he received two notable coaching awards. Babinski was named Heart of America Athletic Conference Coach of the Year and NAIA Region 5 Coach of the Year in 2006. Four years later, the National Fastpitch Coaches Association named him Midwest Region Coach of the Year.

DeMichael said he has confidence in Babinski’s ability to help athletes hit their potential, the way he did when he helped transform the Pioneers from mediocre to NAIA qualifiers—the first time in the history of the program.

Kelsey Decker (sr) is one of the Wildcats’ leaders and has been impressed with “coach Babs” and his mind for the game.

“His knowledge of the sport is better than anyone that I’ve ever played for – or even against,” Decker said.

Babinski is taking over a program that Bowman created in 1987 and was the coach of since its inception.

He laughs when people ask him what it’s like to follow a woman with such a big legacy.

“It’s not about filling shoes; it’s a relay,” Babinski said. “Sue passed the baton to me, and I’ll pass it on to whoever’s next.”

How’s he feeling about his first season?

That’s another question that makes him laugh.

“I know a lot of people are wanting to know wins and losses, but that’s not who I am,” Babinski said. “Basically, what I’ve seen is my girls get better every day. From day one to right now, everyone on our team is better. On the field, off the field, in the classroom: as people. So it’s already been a successful season.”