UI Gets Into Winning Habit

College volleyball

Coach Carl Ferreira will take his Idaho team’s 11-3 overall record any day, even though the Vandals’ list of victims reads like a who’s not who in college volleyball.

“The thing that was important for us is I wanted to try and find a way to be successful. We could have had a tough preseason and gotten beaten up and maybe lost a lot of confidence. I like the growth and development that we’ve had,” said the always philosophical third-year coach.

The Vandals have won 10 of 11 matches and are off to a 2-0 start in the Big West Conference. Nevada (8-3, 1-1), considered the top team in the Eastern Division, is up next on Thursday at Memorial Gym. A less-threatening Utah State (1-8, 0-2) team visits Saturday.

The Vandals - on the road four straight weeks - played without Anna Reznicek at North Texas. The outside hitter suffered an allergic reaction to bee pollen, but she’s back at 100 percent.

They’re the most intimidating one-two punch in Pac-10 Conference volleyball, and both will be in Pullman this week: No. 10 UCLA and No. 19 Southern California.

“That’s just life in the Pac-10. We haven’t gotten them to change that,” Washington State coach Cindy Fredrick said about the daunting task of facing USC’s Trojans on Thursday and UCLA’s Bruins 24 hours later.

Even so far

So far, life in the Pac-10 for the Cougars (7-4) has led to a 2-2 conference record after last week’s win at Oregon followed by a disappointing loss at Oregon State. The Beavers had not beaten the Cougars in the nine previous matches.

Southern California’s (6-3, 1-1) three defeats have come against current No. 14 Arizona, No. 3 Hawaii and No. 5 Long Beach State. USC leads the WSU series 16-10, but were upset by the Cougars in L.A. last year. The Trojans haven’t won in Pullman since 1991.

UCLA (10-1, 2-0), also a loser to Hawaii this season, is on a 10-game winning streak entering Thursday night’s match at the University of Washington (6-6, 2-2). The team is loaded with talent, most notably 1998 freshman player of the year outside hitter Kristee Porter. Senior Tamika Johnson leads the conference in hitting (.426) and junior Elisabeth Bachman ranks sixth (.329).

Big night for Eagles

Eastern Washington (10-3, 3-1) begins a five-match home stretch Thursday night against Big Sky Conference archrival Sacramento State. Weber State (8-5, 2-2) comes in Saturday.

Thursday’s game will be a rematch of last year’s top two teams in the Big Sky. Both went to the NCAA Tournament, although a look at the current standings has the defending conference champ Hornets in the middle at 6-5 overall, 1-1 in conference.

Sac State leads the series 6-2, losing in Cheney last year, but beating EWU twice in Sacramento. The folks at Eastern hope to attract more than 1,200 fans to break last year’s school record of 1,121 for the Northern Arizona match.

Weber State, meanwhile, holds a 23-13 edge against Eastern, but has dropped four straight.

Eastern’s most exciting player has been Lacey Coover, who is averaging 4.71 digs per game, fifth-best nationally. Last week, the outside hitter had an amazing 64 digs in two matches, 34 in a school record-setting day at NAU.

If only Schwarzenegger was a Zag

“We’re not able to terminate” explained Gonzaga coach Eva-Windlin Jansen, when asked what’s keeping her team back. “You gotta kill the ball when you have the opportunities.” It’s time to get it together as the Zags (4-8) come off a two-week hiatus and open West Coast Conference play Friday at Santa Clara (9-3) and Saturday at San Francisco (9-5).

Gonzaga is better than it’s been, partly due to the steadiness of middle blockers Heather Osberg and quick-learning newcomer Britt Whiting. Last year, it finished the preseason 3-9 and went 5-9 in conference. GU hasn’t finished higher than fifth place since 1994.

If that’s going to change, Gonzaga has to solve its problem on the left side. The team’s .132 hitting percentage ranks last in the WCC.

Windlin-Jansen has tried 3-4 combinations and plans to start senior Britten Kimbell and freshman Seraina Bitzi against SCU. The loss of Natasha Kozen (ACL, surgery scheduled) has only made things worse.

GU is 0-5 against Santa Clara since Windlin-Jansen took over the program. However, it hasn’t lost to USF since the Sean Madden incident in 1996, when the coach, who later resigned, had physical contact with a player during a timeout.