Gonzaga Pursues New Strategy
The door has been unlocked from the inside of Fort Madden and the Gonzaga University volleyball team has exited with a plan.
Following Tuesday night’s non-conference home loss to Idaho, Gonzaga’s coaching staff, headed by Sean Madden, and his fed-up troops huddled in the dressing room for about 40 minutes. The closed-door session was initiated by its senior team leaders, twin sisters Jennifer and Christine Kubista.
The Bulldogs (8-13, 1-3), losers of four out of their last five matches, are willing to try the unconventional in an effort to stop the skid as they prepare for Friday’s match at San Francisco (3-12, 0-3) and Saturday’s at San Diego (13-5, 2-1), both West Coast Conference opponents.
The strategy, explained Madden: “We’re going to shuffle our rotation. We’re going to give the opponents so many looks that they won’t be able to adjust. We’ll be comfortable with the confusion and they won’t.”
And there’s more.
“One and a half months ago, we made the decision to coach less, tell less. Let them go out and play.”
It worked for a while, but after conferences losses to Pepperdine, Loyola-Marymount and Santa Clara, the Bulldogs began rethinking their plan.
“The bottom line is we’ll be coaching individuals (in the timeouts) and not the entire team.” Madden said.
“We’ve got the guns. Now we have to learn how to not jam the guns.”
Cougars home for the weekend
Washington State, which slipped from No. 10 to No. 13 in the USA Today/ AVCA Top 25 poll, has its first of two Friday-Sunday matches this weekend.
WSU, which lost to No. 16 (now No. 12) USC and beat No. 13 (now No. 17) UCLA last weekend, plays host to Arizona (3-4, 12-5) at 7 p.m. Friday. On Sunday, the Cougars will play host to Arizona State (3-4, 8-5) at noon. The match was moved to Sunday when the Saturday home football game against California was shifted to a 7:22 p.m. kickoff.
One of the weekend’s biggest visiting attractions - or distractions - is expected to be ASU’s Terri Cox. The 5-foot-7 junior is averaging 5.4 kills per game and is ranked ninth in the nation in kills.
WSU’s Sarah Silvernail is ranked eighth with 5.72 kpg. Cox and Silvernail stand 1-2 in the Pacific-10 Conference.
Cox, younger sister of former Cougar Maureen Cox, leads the Pac-10 and is second in the nation with a 4.83 digs per game average. As a team, the Sun Devils are ranked ninth in digs.
ASU holds a 14-7 edge in the series.
Arizona, which beat WSU last year in Pullman, also holds a 14-7 series advantage. The Wildcats rely on Barb Bell, whose 4.67 kills per game average is fourth in the conference.
“You never know if you’re going to catch them (Arizona) on an up night or a down night,” Cougars coach Cindy Fredrick said.
CCS improves to 6-0
Community College of Spokane remained undefeated (6-0) in NWAACC play with an 18-16, 15-6, 15-8 win over visiting Walla Walla Community College Wednesday.
Jenni Rosselli led the Sasquatch with 11 kills and teammate Tiffany Moore contributed with 12 digs.
Around the region
Big Sky Conference Eastern Division leader Idaho puts its lofty 16-2, 6-1 record up against Cal State Fullerton (11-7, 2-4) tonight and UC Irvine (2-16, 0-6) Saturday. Both Memorial Gym games start at 7:30.
Vandals hitter Jeri Hymas is bothered by a sore shoulder and, according to coach Tom Hilbert, “It makes her have the tendency to drop her arm when she hits. We’ve got to work through that. … Eastern Washington (7-9, 2-5) will attempt to break out of its five-game losing streak tonight when it plays host to Portland State (9-10, 1-6) at 7. With 29 assists last weekend, Eastern’s Kim Maxwell has 297 on the season. With three more, she and Toni Schwinn will each have 300, only the third pair to do so in EWU history.
After earning its first home conference sweep last weekend, Whitworth (5-14, 2-6) is back on the road. The Pirates visit Willamette (18-3, 8-0), undefeated in NCIC play, on Friday and Pacific University (11-10, 3-5) on Saturday.
, DataTimes