Throughout the season, senior Ashley Tennant will give fans an inside look at the 2012 Rhode Island volleyball team through her blog "VolleyTalk" here on GoRhody.com. In addition to being a captain on the volleyball team, she is the president of URI's Student-Athlete Advisory Council and a Peer Advocate at URI.

KINGSTON, R.I. - Last weekend was beyond important, and if you follow our season very closely, you know it was the first weekend we went 2-0.

That came at a great time in our season. In the eight times we have played La Salle in my career, that is the best I have seen them play. When it came down to the fifth game, with a score of 22-20, both teams were playing relentlessly trying to end the match. It truly brought out an old-school version of volleyball of both teams having to earn their points in order to win the game. It showed great character by both teams, and I am ecstatic to not only have been on the floor that night, but also that the match went in our favor.

Against Temple, it was a slow start that was a little mind-boggling. I did not have my strongest start, but I was able to be on the sidelines and watch my team perform with different personnel. It can't hurt our team to have different personnel performing out there, even if it doesn't include me. It was great to see us come away with that victory.

One of the things we knew in the back of our minds was that this was the last time we will ever play Temple in a conference match setting. They will no longer be a part of our conference after this season. To win a grudge match after losing earlier this season, we're calling it the start of the Rhody Revenge tour. We dropped 3-0 at their place. It was surprising that we lost the first set as easily as we did, but it wound up not impacting us, because we were able to win the match in five sets. Having two five-set wins in the weekend shows what kind of team we have and the type of character we have.

Those wins keep alive my dream as a senior to qualify for the Atlantic 10 tournament again. It hasn't been a focus of mine to follow what the other teams are doing this season, but being in the situation we are in, where we are in the middle of the mix, I have resorted a bit to looking at other teams. This weekend, we have Saint Louis and Butler, and I know both of them are below us in the standings. For me going into the senior year, I wanted to win Xavier and Saint Louis. Xavier I have always felt like there was unfinished business against them, and Saint Louis beat us in five sets twice last season, the second time being in our first trip to the A-10 tournament in 10 years.

Tonight's match is one all of the returning players want. I want to be able to say I beat Saint Louis my senior year. Butler (on Saturday) is complete mystery. It'll be interesting to see them on our Senior Night.

I can't help but start paying attention to what other teams are doing. When you are anywhere from fifth place to ninth place, you need to understand everything you need to do to make sure you are in the top six teams. All that said, it all comes down to controlling what we can control on our side of the net.

One of our team members, sophomore Catie Steffen, was the Atlantic 10 Offensive Player of the Week this week. We need consistency and energy, and those are two qualities Catie has. It came at a great time, because, in her opinion, Catie had struggled the previous two weekends. But she worked so hard in the gym, making sure she didn't have a third tough weekend in a row. She knows what she can do, and the fact that it went above and beyond any expectations we have of her, she proved just how well she can play in all aspects of the game. There are so many other things she contributed that go beyond her offense. We need offense, and he light shined on the court. I couldn't be more grateful seeing a younger player step up like that.

Saturday against Butler is our Senior Night. I have thought about Senior Night every weekend. Yet, now that we are in the week leading up to Senior Night, it does not seem real. I have the luxury of having my parents here for each of the last two weekends, but right now it doesn't feel different. Will it feel different on that night? It probably will.

It's not an ending for us, by any means. Not only do we have A-10s in our sights, but we also have two more weekends of conference competition. It's exciting. I've seen Senior Night three times before, and now I'll be watching it in a different way. I don't know how it will actually feel.

You can't help but have a different bond with people you have been with for four years. Rachel Zarazan and I have the opportunity to be captains this year, and we couldn't mesh better. I love her personality that she brings to the floor and what she has to say to the team. I just have so much respect for her. She says great things, and she knows how to lead the team. She is a person I have shared a locker right next to for four years.

Annie Nelson is our quarterback, my setter for four years. There is always that spunk and energy that she brings that has been different from other players on the team. That helps her stand out from the rest. She is the first to want to be the class clown in practices, but she also is the first person to go diving into the stands for a loose ball.

Lauren Wong is by far the hardest working player you will ever watch in our gym. There is not a time when she is not going 150 percent. There is no such thing as going less than 150 percent for her. Her spirit and her motivation and what she has to say with her experience and knowledge is priceless. On Sunday against Temple, I got a dig, and the play was still going. I could hear her yelling, 'Get another dig!' I can hear her voice from all the voices yelling. For a teammate to reach out to you personally from the sidelines to the floor and have that kind of connection with you that you feel they are right there on the court with you is something unique. Lauren has always had that quality. She has been my best friend for four years here, which is funny because we actually despised each other when we first arrived. After three weeks of preseason freshman year, we already knew we'd be best friends for the next four years.

These relationships are priceless. There is definitely something special about that bond with the people in the same grade as you.

As far as SAAC goes, the Rhody Cup competition between the varsity teams is going very well. We had a Life Skills event Monday with a guest speaker, and the turnout by the student-athletes was great. I was at the entrance doing the roster check-ins, and I couldn't keep up with the number of athletes coming through the door. There was no punishment for not attending, so to have that many people there listening to a person's life story was very important. All the teams received points for participating like that.

Our game Saturday is the last Ram Game of the fall season. I expect a good showing. There are a lot of teams traveling this weekend, as always, but the Ram Game is about those teams that are not competing to be able to go and support each other. The Rhody Cup is going very well, and I think in a couple years, once it is firmly established, we'll see a real culture change in terms of the way Rhody athletics works.

Friday's game against Saint Louis also will be the Domestic Violence Awareness game. The girls on the team will be wearing purple ribbons in their hair, and as peer advocates, we will have a table selling bracelets that say "Stop the Violence." There will be red cutout silent victims around Keaney Gymnasium, which are representations of Rhode Island residents who have died as a result of domestic violence. Domestic Violence Awareness is a part of the month we don't get to see as much because we have a strong focus on breast cancer awareness. This weekend is about another key issue highlighted in October, and that is preventing and stopping domestic violence.