The Clipper Women’s volleyball team made history last weekend as they faced the Medicine Hat Rattlers on home turf. Lindsay Wood led her team to its first back-to-back victory set in more than two years, and in the process, she earned the ACAC’s Subway Athlete of the Week award.

It’s the first time a female Clipper has won the award in almost seven years.

Not a bad rebound from last weekend’s loss to the Lethbridge Kodiaks. The Clipper Women’s volleyball record hasn’t been stellar the last few years, but it would seem that thanks in part to Wood, they’re gearing up for a different sort of season.

“Linsday is definitely a huge part of our success as a team,” says Tabitha Garey, the team’s assistant coach. “Having seen her play throughout the last four years, I cannot tell you how impressed I am with her drive to improve. She has been hitting the ball higher and harder than I have ever seen in the past.”

Wood, who has been playing volleyball for twelve years and is in her fourth year with the Clippers, is one of the team’s assistant captains and the acting floor captain (their current captain is out with an injury). She’s known as one of the best players on the team and for her leadership by example.

Last weekend’s match didn’t begin well, so in between the first and second set, Coach Weinmaster told Wood to step it up.

“I made that switch,” she says. “The girls followed suit, [and] it was the best defense we’ve ever played.”

Coach Nolan Wienmaster was thrilled. “Offensively, she was just really consistent for us,” he says. “The consistency in her play is something the girls respond to really well.”

Wood always wanted to play college volleyball, but she wasn’t sure she could. “I was scared,” she says. “I needed a confidence boost.”

She says that playing with the Clippers helped her get over her fear of failing. The encouraging environment helped “so much,” she says.

So it would seem. Wood has gotten steadily better since she began with the Clippers—so good, in fact, that she was recruited to play at Liberty University in Virginia two years ago. She declined. “God wanted me here,” she says simply.

So what does the rest of the season look like? Well, their record is 2-2, the season has just begun, and Wood thinks there are more great things coming. She says that last year, the team had the skill to win big, but that the “winning mentality and killer instinct” weren’t there. It's there this year.

She seems to be on the same page as Weinmaster, who also thinks this could be just the beginning. “Winning can be a habit,” he says. “There’s no replacement for that kind of experience.”

This year, they want to go all the way to nationals. “We have the skills,” says Wood. “Looking at how far we’ve come, I think it’s possible.”