The Panthers know to look at their season one game at a time.

However, senior outside hitter Kara Sorenson has things in a broader perspective going into this weekend’s tournament at Florida State.

“It (the tournament) should be good competition for us to go down there and play bigger schools and give us experience that we need to come back and win the conference,” she said.

Senior outside hitter Mary Welch also has a look on the overall effect of the tournament.

“We looked at other teams in the conference,” she said. “They’ve been doing well and we need to do just as well.”

After watching the game against Indiana State, head coach Lori Bennett already has new goals for the weekend.

“We want to be around .250 or .260 hitting percentage as a team so we got some room to grow,” she said. “We want our outside hitters to be over .250 and our middles to be around .300 or higher.

“Usually they’re higher if they’re being effective and doing their jobs. We need our team to be in the .260 range to be well in our conference . to win our conference.”

Along with these offensive goals, Bennett also wants to improve the defense and serving, while staying strong throughout the matches.

“We have a little bit of work to do on defense,” she said. “We hope to solidify serving as well and then just get our offense going earlier in the match and stay in rhythm throughout the match.”

Besides looking at new goals for the weekend, Bennett has also been considering how the roster will look for the weekend.

After rotating players often in the ISU game, she is leaving the final decision on how the players play.

“That all depends on them and their performance,” Bennett said. “We take a look on how the week has gone in the gym and last week over a 10-day time period and determine starters based on each player’s performance.

“Once they get out there they have to maintain a certain level of play in order to maintain their spot.”

The Panthers start the tournament against South Alabama on Friday afternoon, followed by Stetson Saturday morning.

They finish up against Florida State on Saturday at 7 p.m, Eastern Standard Time.

“We play Florida State in the 7:00 match Saturday night so they obviously think that will be a competitive match,” Bennett said.

Sorenson agrees with her head coach.

“I think Florida State should be a fun game because it’s at their home place and it’s the 7:00 game on Saturday night,” said the senior outside hitter.

Welch knows the competition will be hard and they need to be prepared for it.

“All of the games will be tough,” she said. “We have to come ready to play for all of them.”

Bennett has good hopes on how the team does this weekend, and a possible tournament sweep.

“We’re hoping to go 2-1, maybe 3-0 possibly over the weekend,” she said. “It just depends on how well we stay in system. Regardless it should be a competitive three matches.”