For collegiate athletes, summer break is not so much a time for rest and relaxation as much as it is a time to hone and fine-tune their skills before the season commences.

Practicing and working out with teammates is invaluable for all athletes, but throw in some international competition and it takes training to a new level. Several Cyclone athletes have taken advantage of opportunities to train and compete with players from across the globe.

Two Cyclone volleyball players, Andie Malloy and Caitlin Nolan, were both members of the U.S. Women’s Under 20 team that participated at the Women’s World Championship in Brno, Czech Republic, June 21-30.

“Not a lot of people get to play against the best players in the world and see them in person and learn all they can from them,” Malloy said. “Plus, playing with the best players in the country and learning from them and getting out of your comfort zone helps.”

The team was comprised of 12 different athletes from nine different schools across the nation. Despite the fact that many of the girls had never played together, Nolan said the bonding process did not take long.

“It wasn’t as hard as you would expect it to be,” Nolan said. “We spent time in Lake Placid, N.Y., before we left for the actual competition.”

Aside from playing with the best girls in the nation, Malloy and Nolan also got a taste of what other countries had to offer. The U.S. played Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria and Mexico during pool play, but did not advance out of the pool.

For Malloy, just the opportunity to play and learn from teams like Brazil, the bronze medal winner, and China, the gold medal winner, was valuable.

“There were definitely different styles and there were definitely some powerhouses. Brazil is known to always be very good and they were a great team. There’s also China, who we didn’t get to play, but they ended up winning the whole thing,” Malloy said. “They were a lot of fun to watch because they were very good and had this one player who all of us were just in awe of her. She was very good.”

Malloy and Nolan are not the only athletes given the opportunity to represent their home country in international play. Hallie Christofferson, a 6’3″ senior who averaged 15.6 points per game last season, was invited to try out for the USA Basketball Women’s World University Games team.

Melvin Ejim is currently competing for team Canada in the Men’s World University Games. Through three preliminary games, Ejim has averaged 7.7 points per game and four rebounds per game en route to victories over Sweden, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.

Malloy said the opportunity to learn and play with the best will benefit her and the team heading into the 2013 season, but the players also learned a different lesson.

“There were a few things that they didn’t have that we do have in America like air conditioning and ice in our water, but we got used to that after awhile,” Malloy said. “I guess it definitely made us have a newfound appreciation for America.”