Eagles will try to ‘woo’ NCAA
Playing matches after the Big Sky Conference volleyball tournament is finished doesn’t always sit well with Wade Benson.
But Eastern Washington’s fifth-year head coach isn’t complaining about the two non-conference matchups his Eagles have scheduled at Brigham Young and Utah this weekend.
Mainly, because they give Eastern a chance to redeem its poor showing in Saturday night’s 3-1 home loss to Sacramento State in the finals of the Big Sky Conference tournament and convince the NCAA selection committee it is worthy of an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re going to take this weekend like it’s our NCAAs,” Benson said. “We know where we stand. We could have handled our own business last weekend (by beating Sac State). But now we’re feeling a little bit up against the wall, so we’re going to have to go out and do something special.
“I think we still have a chance.”
But in order to make the NCAAs, the Eagles (20-8) probably need to win at least one match this weekend. And that won’t be easy, considering Friday night’s opponent, BYU is 18-11 and Saturday night’s foe, Utah, is 23-5 and ranked No. 17.
The great unknown, Benson admitted, is how his team will respond in the wake of Saturday’s loss to Sac State, which marked the third consecutive year the Hornets have bested the Eagles on their own court in the Big Sky title match and earned the league’s automatic berth in the NCAAs.
“You can never be sure, but I would hope that we have the kind of fortitude we need to bounce back from that,” Benson said. “If we don’t, maybe we don’t deserve to be in the NCAA Tournament.”
Vandals lose Big West finale
Idaho, which will move into the Western Athletic Conference next season, lost its final two matches as a member of the Big West Conference last weekend.
The Vandals (17-11 overall, 9-9 in the Big West), who travel to Fort Collins, Colo., Wednesday to close their season with a non-conference showdown against eighth-ranked Colorado State (25-3), lost to Cal State Northridge on Thursday and Pacific on Saturday by identical 3-1 scores.
“It’s tough to leave the Big West with a loss, but we’ve really enjoyed competing against these schools,” Vandals coach Debbie Buchanan said. following Saturday’s loss to Pacific “There is a lot of good competition and tough teams, but at the same time we are looking forward to competing in the WAC.”
Wednesday’s match will pit UI against a CSU team under the guidance of former Vandals coach Tom Hilbert. Hilbert, whose Rams won the Mountain West Conference, was 174-72 in eight seasons at Idaho.
Cougs close at home
Washington State (4-25 overall, 1-15 in the Pacific-10 Conference) will close its season at home this weekend with 7 p.m. matches against No. 16 UCLA (17-9, 13-3) and No. 6 USC (18-4, 13-3).
The Bruins invade Bohler Gym on Friday and the Trojans come in Saturday to face a Cougars team that has lost six in a row and 19 of its last 20.
Zags hang up an 0-fer
Gonzaga University (4-25 overall, 0-14 in the West Coast Conference) closed its season with a 3-1 road loss to Portland (11-16, 2-12) last Saturday. It’s the Bulldogs’ first winless WCC season in school history.
Quick sets
The pairings for this year’s NCAA Tournament, which begins Dec. 2, will be announced Sunday at 3:45 p.m. on ESPNews… . Idaho’s Sarah Meek recorded only seven kills in the Vandals’ 3-1 loss at Pacific last Saturday, ending her streak of double-figure kills at 39 matches… . Washington State’s Megan Camp, a junior defensive specialist from Ferris High School, has been named to the Pacific-10 Conference All-Academic team. Camp, a zoology major, has a 3.95 grade-point average. ars’ Alison Billingsley, a senior communications major with a 3.61 GPA, was named to the second team… Idaho’s Meghan Brown set a single-season school record for digs (491) last weekend.