The Virginia volleyball team cruised to victory in its season opener against William & Mary on Wednesday. The Cavaliers, however, do not have much time to celebrate the win as they head to Louisville, Ky. to compete in the University of Louisville Courtyard by Marriot Tournament today and tomorrow.
The tournament will be a physical challenge for the Virginia squad, as three games will be contested in less than 24 hours.
"It's hard [to prepare] because it's the first weekend," Virginia coach Melissa Aldrich Shelton said. "We don't have any game film, usually we exchange tapes."
The Cavaliers will open their portion of the tournament against the host Cardinals, a team that is ranked No. 20 in the USA Today/CSTV Preseason poll. Louisville lost five players from last year's team that won a share of the 2003 Conference USA title, but return with three starters from that team.
"Louisville right off the bat will be the toughest match because they're nationally ranked," Shelton said. "We're just going to go out and play our style of volleyball and see what we got."
The Cardinals have an international flavor to their team as they are led by four-year starter Bing Sun (Beijing, China) and Lena Ustymenko (Kiev, Ukraine), who had the most kills last season by a returning player. In addition to the duo of Bing and Ustymenko, the Cardinals have two players who hail from Russia and a freshman from Latvia. The intercontinental presence also extends to Louisville's head coach, Leonid Yelin. Yelin, a native of the former Soviet Union, is entering his ninth season at the helm for the Cardinals. Last season he notched his 300th career win.
On Saturday, the Cavaliers will face the other two teams competing in the tournament, the Jacksonville State Gamecocks and the Loyola Greyhounds.
The Gamecocks, who will take on the Cavaliers at 11 a.m. Saturday, also opened their 2004 campaign with a win, taking a 3-0 match over Troy State Wednesday. In that match, the Gamecocks defense held Troy State in check and was led by freshman Abbey Breit and sophomore Shari Weyer who had nine and eight blocks a piece.
Loyola will be opening its season at the tournament, and with new head coach Kristina Hernandez behind the bench for the first time. The offense for the Greyhounds will focus on junior Becky Corb, who last season led her team with 453 kills.
The Cavaliers will look to build upon the success they had against William & Mary.
"I think this win gave us the confidence boost we needed," co-captain Alexis Geocaris said. "We definitely set the standard for the rest of the season."
Virginia played with a composure on Wednesday that belied the team's youth. Virginia committed only 10 errors and had an impressive team hitting percentage of .387 with 53 team kills.
"Everyone stresses about whether they can play on the collegiate level ... it's a different ball game, the speed is so much quicker," freshman Sarah Kirkwood said. "But coming out and doing my job gives me a lot of confidence going into this weekend."
That new-found confidence should come in handy for the Cavaliers, as they look to bring home some victories from this weekend's daunting tournament.
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