[media-credit name=’BRYAN FAUST/Herald photo’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]The Wisconsin volleyball team will wrap up its spring season Saturday when the Badgers travel to Aurora, Ill., to play in the College Spring Tournament. There, they will be joined by 23 other teams — including six other Big Ten teams — in competition for the top spot.

The Badgers will compete in five matches and will start the day off with pool play. Wisconsin will face unfamiliar opponents in their morning pool in South Carolina (13-14; 5-11 SEC last year) and Bowling Green (18-14; 8-8 MAC last year).

"Any time you can compete against anybody it helps you. Those kind of teams you don't know them at all," head coach Pete Waite said. "We walk in the gym they don't know us and we don't know them very well, so it takes a team that can really solve problems and figure out where the setter is and what the tendencies are of the players."

And this will be the last time the players will see any game action until early fall, so it will be the last time the players will have a chance to improve on the court during a game.

"One of our team goals is to serve really tough," senior Amy Bladow said. "We've been kind of inconsistent in that area. The other thing is to serve receive really well, another thing we've been struggling with all spring. Another goal is consistency no matter who is in there, to really work hard no matter who's in and play UW volleyball."

One thing that has been consistent with the team's play so far this spring is its inconsistency on the court — especially early on in the matches. Some of this could be due to the fact that Waite has been changing up his lineup to see which one will work best in the fall.

"[Changing the lineup] makes it kind of hectic," Bladow said. "When you don't always have the same people in there, you don't know how the girl next to you is going to pass or you don't know who's going to take that middle ball.

"So I think if we just talk more and pick up our energy then that gets eliminated, but sometimes we will be quiet and won't talk. I don't think the different people cause inconsistency. It's our lack of talk and communication that cause inconsistency."

However, Waite said he does not plan on switching his lineup much during this tournament.

"We're not going to mix it up a lot, but it's a long day so we have to try to rest some people so they are fresh later in the tournament," Waite said. "This is our last time of the spring to really look at a lineup, even what we are looking at now will probably change by the fall, but we will try and stay consistent throughout the tournament."

Since this is the Badgers' last tournament for the spring, it will be the last time for the players to show Coach Waite in game action why they should be in the starting lineup, and maybe get a head start on the incoming freshmen.

"We will have to wait until the freshmen come in the fall to really finalize things and obviously Jackie [Simpson] is injured for the spring so she will have to come back in the preseason and get back in the lineup," Waite said. "So right now it's just a chance to get better and for each player to grow and try some things they haven't done before."

Besides gaining more experience on the court, the Badgers might also get an early look at some of the other Big Ten teams at the tournament in afternoon play.

"Any time you play [Big Ten teams] it helps you because you get another look at them," Waite said. "It's always going to be really competitive because they go at each other all the time in Big Ten season.

"Where it doesn't mean anything as far as wins and losses here. It means a lot as far as bragging rights and just being the one who knows they can win."

This tournament also gives the Badgers a chance to see if they have improved over the course of the spring.

"This is a great way to finish our [spring] season, competing with a bunch of different teams, to see if we have picked up our game and improved in those areas that we were struggling with in Hawaii," Bladow said. "We are going to be playing really a lot of different teams. A lot of the east coast teams like more ball control and we don't get to see a lot of that from the west coast or in the Midwest. It will be really neat to challenge ourselves by playing teams that we wouldn't typically see out here in the Midwest."