Cougs Face Sizzling Osu, Fizzling Uo
After playing 10 matches on the road, racking up enough frequent flyer miles to pay for spring break in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Washington State’s volleyball team is heading home.
The homecoming includes a Friday match against a hot Oregon State team and a Saturday match against depleted Oregon. Both games start at 7 p.m.
On Wednesday, six Oregon players were suspended for swapping their school-issued shoes for personal apparel in violation of an NCAA rule.
Amy Barnes, Casey Crisler, Madeline Ernst and Tia Stewart will miss the Washington and WSU games. The other two players involved, Dani Cordova and Tanya Minion, will not play next weekend when the Ducks host California and Stanford.
The Beavers, however, should be loaded. They won their first 11 matches this season to crack the USA Today/ AVCA Top 25 poll at No. 23. It was their first ranking since November 1993. Last weekend OSU (13-1 overall and 3-1 in the Pacific-10 Conference) swept Arizona and Arizona State to improve to No. 21.
The Cougars (10-3, 1-2), who lost to No. 2 Stanford and beat California last weekend, remain at No. 10.
“That’s a joke, ” WSU coach Cindy Fredrick said of OSU’s low ranking. “Maybe it’s a popularity contest. I think I’m a little more popular than he (OSU coach Jeff Mozzochi) is right now.”
Perhaps, but not more popular than OSU’s 6-foot-3 senior blocker Staci Hintze, who was named the AVCA and Pac-10 player of the week this week. Against the Arizona schools, Hintze had 31 kills and 14 blocks with only two hitting errors in 41 attempts for an incredible .707 attack percentage.
Her .500 hitting percentage leads the conference. WSU’s Sarah Silvernail is fourth at .401.
Eastern hits highway for Montana
This could be a pivotal weekend for the Eagles, who play Montana State (11-4, 2-2) tonight and Montana (4-8, 1-3) Saturday. The Bobcats had been getting some notice among poll voters, but slipped last weekend with losses to Northern Arizona and conference leader Cal State Northridge. The Eagles (7-6, 2-2) split with NAU (1-3) and CS-Northridge (4-0).
Gonzaga opens WCC schedule
Conference play will start fast and furious for the Bulldogs this weekend when they travel to No. 13 Loyola Marymount on Friday and Pepperdine on Saturday. The Wave (5-4) were ranked No. 22 earlier in the poll but dropped out after losing four straight matches.
“We like playing those kinds of teams because it’s fire-power on our fire-power,” said Gonzaga coach Sean Madden, whose team is 7-9 in non-conference matches.
Idaho take on No. 18 team
The Vandals (12-1, 2-0) travel to No. 18 Pacific (9-3, 2-0) tonight and play host to Eastern Conference foe Boise State (2-0, 6-9) on Friday at 7:30 p.m.
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