by Joe Ziemer, Sports Editor

Just as spring is beginning to arrive in Madison, the Wisconsin volleyball team’s spring season draws to a close. The Badgers will wrap up their final practices this week after four weekends of competition. UW opened the spring season by hosting the Badger Invitational at the Natatorium March 13 and finished with a 3-8 game record in a field that included UW-Milwaukee, Loyola, Northern Iowa and Missouri.

The next week Wisconsin traveled to Orlando, Fla., for the Central Florida Spring Tournament. In that competition, the Badgers swept the tournament and lost just one game.

Head coach Pete Waite’s squad then finished up its exhibition play at the Chicago Spring Challenge, where it knocked off St. Louis, Bradley and Western Michigan and dropped matches to Butler and Tennessee.

In addition to getting some game experience under their belts, the Badgers are looking to replaces several key departing seniors. Setter Morgan Shields, outside hitter/libero Lisa Zukowski and libero/defensive specialists Jill Maier and Angie Sanger all completed their eligibility in December.

“I like the progress we’ve made,” Waite said. “We lost a lot of ball handlers and defensive players in our senior class. We’re a taller team, but we had to learn how to take care of the ball in the backcourt.”

While those losses are felt in the defense and ball-handling departments, the Badgers are also looking to replace the leadership 2003 co-captains Shields and Zukowski provided. Among the veterans Waite hope will guide the new Badgers are outside hitters Jill Odenthal and Aubrey Meierotto.

“That’s what the spring has been about is looking for who is going to step up as a leader,” Waite said. “I think the upperclassmen have done a pretty good job — Odenthal, Meierotto and (Marian) Weidner have played a pretty good role in that. I think there’s still another notch up there. When they come back in the fall, they’re going to have to take the lead and show everybody which way we’re going.”

Playing without many of the players Waite will look to as primary passers in the fall, the returning Badgers have had a chance to improve the ball handling of their front-line players, extra work that could pay big dividends come fall.

“We did lose a lot of our DS’s, but we’ve come a long way in our passing and defense this spring,” Odenthal said. “Things are going in the right direction.”