Volleyball takes to the road

By Joe Ziemer, Associate Sports Editor

After winning two of three matches at its own Badger Invitational, the University of Wisconsin volleyball team heads to San Marcos, Texas, for the Texas State Premier. The two-day tournament will pit UW against Texas State, previously known as Southwest Texas State, Louisiana Tech and Pepperdine.

The Badgers (2-1) dropped to No. 24 in the latest poll after losing the first game of their season to Washington last weekend. Head coach Pete Waite is hoping his team learned some lessons from the loss.

“We’re looking to improve upon the areas we thought we got beat on last weekend,” Waite said. “We need to keep the other teams out of their offense and keep down our serving errors; we need to block better. We’ve been working hard in practice this week on our middle blockers getting to the outside and closing a good team block. The other thing is defense.”

Wisconsin’s first opponent of the tournament will be host team Texas State (1-2). The Bobcats will feature two 5-foot-11 outside hitters on the attack in sophomore Lizzy Nwoke (4.00 kills per game) and junior Stephanie Torregrosa (3.20 kills per game).

Running the offense will be junior setter Krystal Kolkhorst, with 6-foot-0 middle blocker Amy Amundson anchoring the defense. The match will represent the first meeting between the two teams.

“We’ll see a little bit of tape before we go, but what I think is coming out of Texas is a pretty good, quick offense — pretty good ball control,” Waite said.

“I think that is going to be a match where it is our side of the net; we have to control the tempo to win that one.”

Next up for the Badgers will be Louisiana Tech (3-0), the champion of last weekend’s Louisiana-Lafayette Tournament.

“Louisiana Tech is a team that I think at times has struggled with its ball control,” Waite said, “so we will have to see if it has improved in that area, but there are usually a lot of great athletes on the team.”

Among those athletes are 6-foot-1 senior Cristine Sant’Anna, the team leader in kills with 4.22 per game and 6-foot-0 junior middle blocker Megan Rush (3.11 kills per game, 0.89 blocks per game).

The odds-on favorite for the tournament will be No. 8 Pepperdine (2-1), whose only loss in the Four Points Sheraton Classic came at the hands of No. 10 Arizona. Wisconsin will meet the Waves Saturday in its final tournament game.

“Pepperdine is no doubt the best team going into the tournament,” Waite said. “Just a huge team, and Katie Wilkins is an All-American. She’s about a 6-foot-4 left side hitter. They are just tall over all, they have a number of 6-foot-2, 6-foot-3 kids on the court, so we are going to have to out-ball-handle them to win it.”

Alongside Wilkins (4.82 kills per game) is 6-foot-1 sophomore outside hitter Katy Daly (3.55 kills and 2.55 digs per game). On defense, libero Christina Hinds leads the way with 3.75 digs per game.

While the Waves are the highest profile team of the three, the Badgers are not taking Texas State and Louisiana Tech lightly.

“We have to be careful,” Waite said. “We talk to the team about respecting every opponent and knowing how important the wins are for us at the end of the season. Our kids will be up for it; it’s just a matter of the style of the other team and how well we can play on that day.”

The Badger offense is led by junior Jill Odenthal, who paces the team in kills per game, with 5.67 with a hitting percentage of .459. Her kills-per-game average is tops in the Big Ten, and her hitting percentage ranks second. UW has also gotten solid early contributions from senior Lisa Zukowski (3.11 kills per game) and sophomore Aubrey Meierotto (.429 hitting percentage), but Waite is hoping for some additional offensive support.

“We have to get more people to step up offensively,” Waite said. “We would have two people, maybe three have pretty good games, where we need a fourth or maybe a fifth really coming through with some offense to really do well.”

With Wisconsin’s lack of size, the team knows how important team defense will be to the success of its season.

“We have a lot of great attitudes on the team, and we aren’t going to be the biggest hitters out there. We’ve seen teams with 6-foot-4 hitters, 6-foot-3 hitters,” Odenthal said. “Most of us are only 6-foot-0 tall, so that’s where playing as a team becomes so important, because not one person can be out of place, otherwise the whole thing falls apart.

“We need to be a great defensive team, as much as we keep saying it,” said Odenthal. “That is the one thing that has to hold for this year to be successful.”

While the job may be more challenging than in previous years, the Badgers are more than up to the task.

“We’re not just going to walk all over teams,” Zukowski said. “We’re going to have to bring our heart and pour it out on the floor every single match.”