As I was leaving Reed Gym last Saturday after the Idaho State volleyball team’s straight-set victory over Eastern Washington, I took a look up at the banners hanging on the wall and was a bit surprised by what I saw.

    The ISU volleyball team has recorded just one Big Sky Conference championship and that was in 1990 when the team won both the regular season and tournament championships.

    While still a bit in shock about the lack of championships, I went down to do post-match interviews with senior Breanne Van Every and Lori Mendenhall.

    When the pair arrived in the media room, one of the first questions I asked them was what did they think about the one volleyball championship banner hanging in the gym.

    “That was the year I was born,” Van Every said of the 1990 championship. “It is always the goal for us to try and win a championship and there is no doubt that this team is capable of doing that.”

    The 2012 Bengals teams may add another championship to the banner if the second half of the season is anything like the first.

    After the season’s first 19 games the Bengals find themselves 15-4 and 9-1 in the Big Sky, currently sitting in a first place tie with Portland State.

    ISU also is in the midst of their second long winning streak of the season at five games. Earlier in the season, the Bengals had a nine-game winning streak and were a five-set loss on the road to Montana State away from being in the middle of a 15-match winning streak.

    And don’t think the team’s success on the floor has gone unnoticed.

    During last weekend’s homestand against first-place Portland State and last-place Eastern Washington, close to 2,000 fans came out to Reed Gym to support the team.

    The players noticed.

    Mendenhall told me after the EWU match that the team was surprised how many people had come out to the games and that the teams appreciate the fans’ support.

    The fans also really get into the matches.

    In the nine plus years I have lived in Pocatello, I have been to Reed Gym many times but there are only a handful of those that I can remember the gym being full or close to it. The last of those times was when the women’s basketball team won the Big Sky title in March.

    To finally see the volleyball team get that kind of support is a welcomed sight.

    ISU head coach Chad Teichert has brought the team from the bottom of the Big Sky to the top in his four plus seasons as coach.

    But this year, with a mix of experience and youth, the Bengals look to be putting it all together.

    “It’s pretty nice,” Van Every said of where the team is at the halfway point of the season. “But we have to keep getting better. Every day in practice we have to get better because everybody else is getting better.”

    Van Every is one of just three seniors on the team this season, along with Jaclyn Hone-Hawkins and Kimberly Naut.

    Van Every and Hone-Hawkins are the senior leaders that all championship-caliber teams need, but it has been the play of an experienced group of young players that has allowed the Bengals to excel.

    Sophomores Alydia Fields, Whitney Bartschi and Kylee Searle are all big pieces of the team.

    Searle is the libero and does a solid job running in the defense. Fields is one of the team’s top attackers and Bartschi is making her presence known in the middle.

    Redshirt freshman Tressa Lyman is having a breakout season. The Central Utah native finds herself sixth in the conference in kills and fifth in points.

    But it’s Medenhall that makes the Bengals’ attack go.

    The junior setter is second in the conference in assists and is the vocal floor leader for the team.

    The next two weeks are key for ISU as they play four games on the road, where the team suffered its lone conference loss.

    Winning the next four games will put the Bengals in the driver’s seat for the No. 1seed in the conference tournament.

    Is this the dream season for the volleyball team? Through the first half of the season, sure it is. But if they want to win it all the next six weeks will show how good the team really is.