Having put together a 7-2 record so far, including a sweep of the Marriott Jefferson Cup last weekend, Virginia’s volleyball team will head to Evanston, Ill. for the weekend to play in its final preseason tournament, the Wildcat Classic. The Cavaliers will look to continue building momentum as they head into their conference schedule that begins Tuesday against Virginia Tech in Blacksburg.
The first match of the tournament for the Cavaliers is a contest this morning against No. 4 UCLA scheduled to start at 11:30 a.m. This will be first-year coach Lee Maes’s first match with the Cavaliers against a ranked team.
“We’ve grown leaps and bounds,” Maes said. “Now it’s them being able to sustain a level of effort and focus for a long period of time.”
The UCLA Bruins are 7-1 (0-0 PAC 10) on the season and have lost only four sets. These sets were against Hawaii and Penn State, both currently ranked in the top 10 nationally.
UCLA has dominated all parts of the game and boasts a .270 kill percentage in the eight matches it has played so far. The team has allowed only two ball-handling errors the entire season, compared to the Cavaliers’ 11. One statistical area in which the Cavaliers have a slight advantage is service aces per set; Virginia has put up 1.8 against the Bruins’ 1.5.
Virginia’s Kendahl Voelker, a sophomore right side hitter, has 28 kills and nine blocks in the past three matches.
“Right now [the Bruins] are really good,” junior outside hitter Lauren Dickson said. “We still are focusing to do what we can to better ... what we do technically.”
UCLA is the only team on the Cavaliers’ schedule all season currently ranked in the top 25.
Following the match against the Bruins, the Cavaliers will suit up tonight at 8 p.m. against Northwestern. The Wildcats, who are hosting this weekend’s tournament, are 4-4 so far on the season, including a narrow defeat to No. 16 Wichita State.
Northwestern features a very young roster: Only four of the players on the Wildcats’ 14-woman roster are upperclassmen. The Cavaliers will look to take use their edge in experience to deal with the home crowd in Chicago that will likely be cheering loudly against them.
The Cavaliers will finish the tournament tomorrow night at 7 p.m. with a match against Georgetown. The Hoyas hold a 6-3 record, including a 3-0 loss to ACC opponent North Carolina.
The Wildcat Classic will be a homecoming for freshman outside hitter Simone Asque, who listed this weekend’s tournament as one of the season’s events she was most looking forward to. Asque is one of four Cavaliers from the Prairie State.
Though the conference schedule is right around the corner, and UCLA is likely a better team than the Cavaliers will have to play for the rest of the regular season, the Cavaliers do not assume the match or any others will result in a loss.
“We take it one game at a time,” Dickson said. “It’ll be an exciting match.”
Following this weekend’s match and the quick turnaround to Blacksburg Tuesday, the Cavaliers will have a few days to catch their breath before Georgia Tech and Clemson come to Memorial Gym Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, respectively.
For now, though, the Cavaliers have their sights set on finding a way to pull the big upset against the Bruins.
Shannon Davis, a senior middle for Virginia and MVP of the Marriott Jefferson Cup, noted the Cavaliers will approach the match with the confidence they try to bring to every game.
“It’s a matter of executing to win the game,” Davis said.
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