The UA volleyball team continued its offseason tournament schedule as it traveled to Jenny Craig Pavilion for the San Diego Spring Tournament.

The round robin tournament featured matches against BYU and University of California-Irvine, both of which the Wildcats won. Arizona dropped its third match against the University of San Diego, a team UA head coach Dave Rubio described as being “”clearly the better of the three teams.””

“”(San Diego) is returning more veteran players and they are an older team and they clearly played the steadiest,”” Rubio said, referencing 11 returning players for San Diego.

Because the event took place in the offseason no official stats were taken, but Rubio didn’t need them to critique his team.

“”I thought we played well at times and inconsistent at times,”” Rubio said. “”But we had great performances out of our younger kids. I’m not really pleased but not terribly disappointed.””

The tournament was a booster for the team’s confidence by taking two out of three matches against some stiff competition, including a BYU squad that went to the Elite Eight last season.

Rubio said he saw great performances out of some of the younger kids like freshman middle blockers Stephanie Snow and Kaylen Bannister while opposite hitter Randy Goodenough and outside hitter Brooke Buringrud continued to show their leadership skills as team veterans.

“”We’re playing so many people in so many different positions that we don’t have a solid lineup and some of the players don’t have a chance to get comfortable,”” Rubio said. “”It’s definitely a work in progress for us.””

The Wildcats will head back to California next weekend to compete at University of California-Santa Barbara, where the team will continue to increase the competition load as they will also face squads from Pepperdine and Utah.