For the second time in three weeks, the UW women's volleyball team heads on the road. And for the second time in three weeks, they'll be heading to North Carolina. But the team had learned some things about themselves since the last time they were there.
The Badgers leave with optimistic and improved expectations for this weekend's tournament which includes the 18th ranked team of UC-Santa Barbara on Friday and American and Duke on Saturday. After strong play and winning the InnTower Invitational last weekend in Madison, the UW women appear to be bouncing back after some rough play at the Carolina Classic against North Carolina Aug. 30 to Aug. 31.
Junior setter Morgan Shields was named Most Valuable player of the tournament as well as being named Big Ten Player of the Week and as a team, UW moved up to 12 in the rankings and improved its record to 4-1.
\I thought overall we did really well,"" senior middle blocker Lori Rittenhouse said. ""We worked out a few wrinkles, if you want to call them that, from the previous tournament. We played more together as a team, missed less serves and our blocking improved; so I think it's a step in the right direction.""
One of the biggest problems early on seemed to be mental errors. Currently, the Badgers are averaging 62 serving errors to opponent's 33, a fact that Rittenhouse said the team is addressing.
""We want to be aggressive and consistent servers,"" she said. ""We served a lot of balls out against NC and in a rally that causes you points and sometimes the game or match.""
Playing a ranked team like Santa Barbara on the road poses difficulties in that the Badgers don't have a lot of tapes for scouting so instead it will be business as usual
""We've been working hard as a team fine-tuning things, more than anything else,"" Jill Odenthal said. ""Making sure we've got better ball control and coming together as a team.""
This will be one of the last opportunities the women have to refine any skills before conference play begins. After coming home for the Badger Invitational next weekend, the Badgers will head to Purdue.
""It definitely gets you in shape, playing two matches a day,"" Rittenhouse said. ""You know less about the teams you're playing because we don't have as much scouting , so you play more raw volleyball and you can only get better with scouting reports which you have in the Big Ten play.""
Freshman Beth Haberli, who played the newly introduced position of the libero and added 10 digs for the defense, said the team is looking forward to this weekend's tournament and getting some more experience under the team's belt.
""We're excited,"" Haberli said. ""We're hoping to get another tournament under our belt so we have the experience for the Big Ten.\
