SPORTS
Waite’s squad hosts Phoenix in spring finale
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Also by Michael Poppy:
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by Michael Poppy
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
The Wisconsin volleyball team wraps up its spring season Wednesday night as they host the Fighting Phoenix of UW-Green Bay at the Field House. The match starts at 7 p.m. and admission is free.
Two weeks ago at UW’s most recent competition, the DePaul Spring Tournament, senior-to-be Aubrey Meierotto led the team to a 5-0-1 finish with 29 kills, capping off a successful spring on the road.
With a slate of three tournaments this spring against some of the Midwest’s better teams, the Badgers dropped only one match and split another.
Though head coach Pete Waite has been pleased with his team’s performance thus far, he will still be looking for overall improvement and a replacement at the right-side hitter position after losing All-American senior Jill Odenthal.
Waite has shuffled his lineup throughout the spring, testing Meierotto, redshirt freshman Audra Jeffers and junior Amy Bladow out at the position and will continue to experiment tomorrow against UW-Green Bay to measure where his team stands heading into the fall season.
While the right-side hitter position is clearly the biggest void to fill this spring, Waite has noticed that the entire squad has been challenging each other at every position and is pleased with his team’s intensity, knowing it will carry over to match play against other opponents.
“They’re all fighting for spots,” Waite said. “They’re out there to prove that they are the best one for the job and everyday in practice they’re going head to head with each other and competing hard. So I know that when they step out on the court they’ll be playing as a team and going out to beat anyone we play against.”
Although replacing Odenthal, as well as Marian Weidner off the bench, has been one of Waite’s top priorities this spring, improving his team’s defense is at the top of his agenda.
“[We’re looking to improve] our defense especially,” Waite said. “In the fall, we were known for being a pretty good blocking team and pretty strong offensively, but we need to be a better passing and defensive team, and that’s what we’re really focusing on in practice.”
Waite has put such an emphasis on defense since the fall season’s end that he even added former Badger setter Colleen Bayer to the coaching staff in hopes of stressing defensive play throughout the spring and onto next fall as well as bringing an added intensity to the team.
The Badgers ended last year with an NCAA tournament run to the Elite Eight and return 13 of 15 players from that squad. That team unity has carried over to this spring, as the team has bonded extensively and with the addition of some freshmen, such as Faye McCormack of Downers’ Grove, Ill., they feel primed to produce another solid showing in the Big Ten and make another tourney run. For the tight-knit Badgers, the spring campaign has flown by.
“The spring season is going by really fast and I can’t believe it’s our last tournament already,” middle blocker Sheila Shaw said.
Nevertheless, the team is pumped to close out its spring season in front of a home crowd and continue its improvement heading into next fall’s season.
“Everyone’s definitely excited for it,” Meierotto said of playing the last spring match. “We want to still improve on the things we’ve been practicing this week so I think that we’re going to just and give it our all.”
