[media-credit name=’JEFF SCHORFHEIDE/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′]
[/media-credit]Basking in the Hollywood glitz, the UW volleyball team will take on the City of Angels.
Continuing a stretch where they will play 10 road matches in six different cities, the Badgers head to Los Angeles to compete in the Loyola Marymount Classic.
The round-robin tournament will feature Columbia, Tulane and the host, Loyola Marymount.
Columbia, Wisconsin’s first opponent, hasn’t started its season, providing little with which Badger head coach Pete Waite can prepare.
"Columbia hasn't started their season yet, so we don't know what they're about yet this year," he said at a press conference Monday.
Last season the Lions finished 7-17 overall, (1-13 Ivy League). Junior outside hitter Amalia Viti led the team in kills with 3.29 per game.
Wisconsin will then face a Tulane team that is off to its best start in program history, going 7-0 to begin the year, including a win against then No. 31 Colorado.
The Green Wave will challenge the Badgers by throwing a talented front line at the net. Junior outside hitter Sara Radosevic is a two-time AVCA All-American honoree and sophomore Ksenija Vlaskovic (Pozarevac, Serbia) was named AVCA Midwest Region Freshman of the Year and Conference USA Freshman of the Year for averaging 3.77 kills per game. Radosevic, who is from Croatia, ranked fifth nationally, averaging 5.50 kills per game in 2006. She is averaging 4.61 kills per game through seven matches this season.
Add setter Luna Rebrovic into the mix (Zagreb, Croatia) and Tulane has a formidable foreign influence.
"They have three foreign players on the team, so we'll have to deal with that and figure them out," Waite said.
Wisconsin will conclude its Los Angeles visit with a match against Loyola Marymount. The Lions (3-3) enter their home tournament winners of a back-and-forth match against UC Irvine. In that five-game set, senior Heather Hughes finished with 28 kills, 16 digs and five blocks to record yet another double-double.
The Fallbrook, Calif., native is the reigning National Player of the Week for her efforts last weekend against UC Santa Barbara and Northwestern.
"Loyola Marymount is a very good team … just beat Northwestern and Santa Barbara on the weekend," Waite said.
Without much experience facing these teams, Wisconsin will stick to its game plan, focusing on building upon its play.
Veteran leadership has been and will be a contributing factor for this Badgers team.
Seniors Taylor Reineke, Jackie Simpson and Jocelyn Wack have contributed a great deal to the program and will be relied upon to keep the team upbeat despite this long stretch of road matches.
"As captains, Jo Wack and Taylor are doing a great job," Waite said. "And it is just the kind of group that's very responsible, and they communicate well with the staff and with each other, which just makes things easier for us as a staff. And especially with this big road trip that we've got a month on the road, it makes things a lot easier. But we tell them, we're going to grow a lot from it by being on the road and being ready for NCAA play and Big Ten play on the road."
