At the beginning of every volleyball season, schools from all over the country host invitational tournaments. Sending out countless invitations to fellow volleyball programs, hosts attempt to stack their guest lists with ample competition for tournament play. Arizona volleyball’s Wildcat Classic is no exception.
“It’s a mass email, hoping a few people will want to come,” head coach Dave Rubio said.
The Wildcats will host three guests this weekend: Presbyterian College today at 10:30 a.m., Cal State Fullerton tonight at 7 and Eastern Washington tomorrow at 12:30 p.m.
Aiming to improve
At 2-1 on the season, the Wildcats beat both the Wichita State University Warriors and San Francisco Dons, but fell hard to the No. 10 University of Hawaii Warriors.
“I don’t think we had a very good mindset going into it,” Rubio said. “I don’t think we played scared, but we certainly didn’t play with any sense of urgency. And when you start to play more physical teams, they’re going to expose your flaws and that’s exactly what happened.”
Arizona’s flaws could be seen in its serving and setting, Rubio said.
Senior outside hitter Courtney Karst views Hawaii as a gauge for Arizona’s upcoming Pac-12 play.
“Hawaii, when we played them, we didn’t play as well as we expected,” Karst said. “I think it was an eye-opener about how hard we’re going to have to work against anyone in the Pac-12. I know we’re all pretty upset about how we played against Hawaii, so this week in practice we’re going to come out and work hard — hopefully this weekend we won’t have any slip-ups like we did against Hawaii.”
In addition to serving and setting, the team had poor communication and trouble serve-receiving against the Warrior’s tough serves, Karst said.
Senior Marketa Hanzlova said the team must improve that communication for the Wildcats to avoid the subpar play from Hawaii.
“Try to play more together, talk more, don’t make so many mistakes, and work hard,” Hanzlova said. “I want to keep working on my serve and get a lot better in hitting lines.”
*The opponents *
Out of three attending guests, only the Cal State Fullerton Titans had a winning season last year. The Titans took home the Big West Conference Championship after finishing 26-6.
Presbyterian College finished with a record of 13-18, and the Eastern Washington Eagles finished 8-19 in 2010.
“On paper, you’d probably say Arizona is the obvious choice to be the top seed,” Rubio said. “Then again you just don’t know.”
