The ISU volleyball team will not leave the state of Iowa this spring, but this weekend will be the only time it competes in Ames for a home tournament. And that has its benefits.

“It’ll be great not to have to get on a bus and travel,” said ISU coach Christy Johnson-Lynch.

Not having to travel provides another benefit for the team.

“It’s always nice for us players to get that extra hour of sleep,” said senior Mackenzie Bigbee.

On a more serious note, this weekend will provide the team another chance for improvement after making great strides last weekend.

Last week featured two matchups with Iowa and vast improvement between the two meetings.

“We played a lot better over the weekend than we did against Iowa on Tuesday,” Johnson-Lynch said. “We played at another level, so that was really cool to see … just in a few days looking a lot better.”

Iowa State played 10 sets at the UNI Spring Tournament and won all 10.

“I think it shows how much we can improve in a short amount of time,” said junior Ciara Capezio.

It’s an encouraging sign for a team that is trying to make the most of its spring season, which is only a month long.

At the halfway point of the spring season, Johnson-Lynch has been pleased with her team’s offensive attack and blocking abilities, both of which were points of emphasis entering the spring season.

Another goal of the spring season is for Johnson-Lynch to figure out her roster.

“We are very deep in every single position that we have,” Johnson-Lynch said. “These are the most competitive practices, I think, that we’ve had.”

Sounds good, right? The team can have less fear about potential injuries and Johnson-Lynch said the practices have been taken up a notch. But having depth also raises a problem.

“It’s kind of a good problem, but it can be a problem,” Johnson-Lynch said. “You want someone to emerge. You don’t want to go through the fall not knowing who your starters are. … So we hope at some point that happens, but it sure makes for competitive practices.”

With the spring season coming to a close in the coming weeks, Johnson-Lynch hopes some athletes begin to emerge.

For now, the athletes are competing with one another everyday in practice and every time they take the court for spring competition. It’s a definite positive, Johnson-Lynch said, because nobody can take a day off.

Everybody has to bring it every day.

The next chance to do that in a real game setting will be at the Iowa State Spring Tournament. First serve is at 9:30 a.m. April 18 at Hilton Coliseum.