The UA volleyball team will wrap up its spring tournament season this weekend as it heads to Las Vegas for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Spring Classic at Cox Pavillion. The women will face off against UNLV, New Mexico, NAU and Montana with the slight chance that ASU will show up to compete as well.

The Wildcats will kick off play at 9 a.m. tomorrow and continue in a round robin format throughout the day.

This tournament will conclude four straight weekends of matches for the volleyball team, each following a rigorous week of training and practice.ÿ

UA head coach Dave Rubio explained the weekend matches as “”tests”” to evaluate what the team has accomplished in the week leading up to it.

“”Our No. 1 goal is to continue to provide our players an opportunity to compete against other teams,”” Rubio said. “”We’d certainly like to play at a level we have been training at the last several weeks.””

While the competition may not be quite at the level the team has faced in the last couple of weeks, Rubio insists it’s impossible to tell where other teams stand at this point in the season due to a majority of reasons. The fact that none of the matches count against the team helps them to focus on other things.

“”It’s uncertain where the other teams are as far as who’s hurt or whose coming back,”” Rubio said. “”So really what (we’re) trying to do is worry about what’s going on on our side of the net.””

Rubio was pleased with the development of some of the younger players who are finally getting a chance to strut their stuff. He added that spring practices tend to take a toll on athletes and he was impressed with how some of the younger athletes – like Kaylen Bannister, Stephanie Snow and Whitney Dosty – took that in stride.

Rubio added that giving the younger players a chance to gain experience now helps in the fall when the new recruits come in fighting for playing time as well. With the spring season, the current athletes don’t have to worry so much about losing as many repititions to new athletes coming in and picking up the new system.ÿ

“”Spring can be a grind but they really have to get through this because this is the last time we will have formal training with them until the fall,”” Rubio said.