NCAA Volleyball in the Field House Tonight
December 03, 2004 | Volleyball
Just how happy is the Wisconsin volleyball team to be hosting the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament in the UW Field House this weekend'
'Obviously, we were really excited to be able to host, ' said junior Sheila Shaw. 'It's a great opportunity for us in the Field House because we know we play our best here and it's just a great environment. We're really going to take advantage of it.
Freshman Jackie Simpson agreed. 'Being such a young team, I think it's going to make a huge difference for us ' having that ability to relax a little more and just kind of enjoy the game.'
The Badgers (19-9 overall) take on Loyola (22-8) today at 7 p.m. in first-round NCAA action. Notre Dame (20-8) and Valparaiso (29-4) open play in the other first-round match at 5 p.m. The match winners will face off on Saturday at 7 p.m. in the second round for the right to advance to the NCAA Regional in Green Bay, Wis., on Dec. 10-11.
Wisconsin is 12-3 in the Field House this season and takes an eight-match home winning streak into this weekend's play. The Badgers haven 't lost at home since Sept. 26 when they lost to then-20th-ranked Ohio State.
'It's been a good season for us,' said UW coach Pete Waite, whose team finished fourth in the always strong Big Ten Conference, receiving an at-large bid to the tournament. 'We've been excited about how well our team has done and there's some excellent teams in here to play this weekend. It's going to be some great volleyball in the Field House.'
All three other participating teams won their conference tournaments to earn automatic bids into the championship. Loyola won the Horizon League tournament in dramatic fashion, coming back from a 0-2 deficit to edge Cleveland State, 3-2, in the championship match. Notre Dame won the BIG EAST regular season and conference tournament while Valparaiso won the Mid-Continent Conference tournament title.
When asked about his team's first-round opponent, Waite expects a battle with the Ramblers. 'Loyola is a very good team ' they 're fast, athletic, a great ball-handling team. They've put a good run together here to win their conference tournament in the Horizon League and had to really battle for it to win in five. It says a lot for how tough they are and how much they 'll battle for the win. We're going to have to play our best ball to win. They've got some players that are very well rounded and play the game very well. '
But Waite also has some athletes who play the game very well. Led by 2004 unanimous All-Big Ten selection Shaw and Big Ten All-Freshman team member Simpson, the young Badgers have improved considerably from their early-season form.
'Early in the season, we were a team looking for who the starters were going to be; looking for people to step up and be solid for us from one match to the next,' explained Waite. 'We had a number of new faces in the program ' three freshmen starters and more coming off the bench. It took us about a month to get our feet on the ground and really start taking off. It didn't really happen until a third of the way through the Big Ten season against Minnesota when we lost at their place to come back and really regroup. We really took off from there. '
Wisconsin won eight straight after the loss to the Gophers including the rematch with second-ranked Minnesota on Oct. 30. The Badgers downed the Gophers, 3-2, in front of a national television audience on ESPN2.
The UW's eight-match winning streak was snapped dramatically as it went on the road for matches against three top-25 teams. The Badgers lost at Illinois, Penn State and Ohio State before returning home to win two more. The regular season ended with a split on the road with a loss at Purdue and a win at Indiana.
'We're pretty much right where we wanted to be and where I expected us to be,' explained Waite. 'Being a young team, it would have been really hard to be at the top of the Big Ten this year with the number of solid teams ranked nationally. I think we really held our own with being such a young group.
'But now it's a whole new season. The NCAA tournament gives us a chance to take our game to another level, for the young kids to experience something they haven't seen before and to do it in front of our home crowd.'
