[media-credit name=’UW Athletic Communications’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]Fresh off opening the spring season with a perfect 5-0 record at the Marquette Spring Tournament earlier this month, the Badgers’ volleyball team will compete in the third annual Chicago Spring Tournament this weekend.

Hosted at the Palos Courts in Palo Hills, Ill., the tournament will boast 18 Division I teams, which will be divided into six pools of three, and then the teams will be reseeded based on those results. Big Ten opponents Michigan State, Illinois, Northwestern and Purdue will be competing, as well as several Mid-American and Big 12 teams.

The competition will be an ample opportunity for head coach Pete Waite to gauge his squad’s progression since the fall season.

“[The competition is] pretty strong. … we’re in the spring — nobody’s using their seniors. It’s just the underclassmen who are coming back to play next year,” Waite said. “It’s just a great chance to get out and see what level we’re playing at right now.”

The Badgers will be returning 13 letter-winners from the fall, when they finished the year with an Elite Eight appearance and ranked the No. 14 team in the nation.

While this team unity will help UW in the spring, they still must find competent replacements for graduating seniors Jill Odenthal and Marian Weidner, as they will be losing invaluable experience from the duo.

“Well, you lose experience, you lose people who’ve been on the court for four years, and they learned a lot over that time,” Waite said. “With Odenthal, she was able to really score for us almost at will. She was great at offense, and Marian was great coming off the bench, giving us a spark any time we needed it. So we got new players that need to step up, and this is where we’ll see them do that this spring.”

With these losses, head coach Pete Waite will be looking for anyone on the roster to step up during this weekend’s tournament, as the team gets its second opportunity of the year to prove itself.

“I always look for everybody to step up,” Waite said. “We got a strong group. We got 13 players, and that’s a big number for a spring team, and everybody’s going to get a shot to get in there and show what they’ve got. So they’re competing hard against each other in practice now, and I know they want to go against some new competition this weekend.”

Over the winter, Waite added Colleen Bayer, a former two-time all-Big Ten setter for the Badgers, to the coaching staff, along with her husband Dave, in hopes of improving various aspects of the volleyball squad.

“They’ve both got great backgrounds in Wisconsin and the Wisconsin program,” Waite said. “[Colleen] is working primarily with our defense, and Dave is helping out with the blocking, and it’s just a new look. They’re coming in with a view from the outside having watched us play the last couple of years, and they can come in and help us make some adjustments to help make us better.”

Waite has been primarily focusing on improving his team’s defense and passing this spring, increasing this emphasis after watching the team’s play in the fall.

“[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.”

The Badgers will be able to address many of head coach Pete Waite’s tasks for his spring agenda during this weekend’s tournament. Although making adjustments to his squad in preparation for the fall season is Waite’s priority, UW is arguably the favorite in the tourney. Only two of last year’s top 25 programs, Wisconsin and Purdue, will compete in the tournament.