RYAN CLAY/Arizona Daily Wildcat The Arizona men's volleyball team huddles around head coach Steve Carlat yesterday during practice in the Student Recreation Center north gym. The team will chase its third national championship this weekend at the NIRSA national tournament.

At a school where winning streaks are a common occurrence, one of the more impressive is by a club team.

The softball team's 70-game win streak and Jennie Finch's personal 60-game tear both recently ended. Golfer Lorena Ochoa has won seven consecutive tournaments. But when the No. 1 Arizona men's volleyball team takes the court this weekend in Dallas for the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association championship tournament, it will put a perfect 36-0 record on the line as it chases its third undefeated season in four years.

The Wildcat A team enters the weekend fresh off its fourth-straight Mountain West Conference Championship.

Head coach Steve Carlat said this year's team ranks among the best he's coached during his tenure, which has seen a pair of undefeated national champion squads and a runner-up.

"If you take (this year's players) as a group, they are probably the best we've had in the four years I've been affiliated with the team," Carlat said. "I'm very proud of them, and it's by far the most outstanding group that we've had."

Arizona has beaten every top-ten club team in country except for No. 5 Indiana, which it has not played.

Senior middle blocker Jeremy Zarowitz said that this year's team is unique because it has also dominated NCAA opponents.

"This is the first year we're undefeated completely, because we beat all the NCAA teams we played also," Zarowitz said. "(Our record) means we are playing the best of any club team in the country and better than most NCAA teams. It is a really good accomplishment for us."

This year's team faced some of its toughest opposition outside the gym, in the form of a new NIRSA rule prohibiting teams with more than two players with non-club collegiate experience - meaning anybody who has played NCAA, NAIA or junior college volleyball - to participate in NIRSA Division I competition.

Some of the players felt the rule was aimed specifically at Arizona and was a response to their dominance.

"It feels like NIRSA's trying to punish us for being successful," Zarowitz said.

NIRSA made the concession that the Wildcats could split up their team and have one team play Division I and another play Division II. This is in addition to the B team that already plays in Division III.

Arizona then split its program into three teams in order to comply and is now hoping to be the first and only program to sweep all three divisions at the NIRSA national tournament.

Senior setter Jeff Grobe, who is one of two Wildcats to have been named conference MVP - along with this year's honoree senior Matt Olson - said he feels that the rule-change ordeal only brought the team closer together.

"We're determined to win all three championships," Grobe said. "I think it has been a great achievement for all of us to work through all the problems we've had through the season and come together as one unit even though we're playing in three separate teams."

Carlat said he looks forward to his team overcoming one more obstacle this season and winning another title.

"Everyone guns for (our teams) no matter when they step on the floor. I think they're ready to answer that call," Carlat said. "The exciting thing is to see them grow as athletes and people and respond to some very challenging condition that they are going to have to face (at the tournament)."

Grobe said a perfect senior season would be nice, but he's focusing on his third national title in four years.

"I'm not as much worried about the perfect season: I'm more worried about just winning the national championship," Grobe said. "It would be nice to win them all, but that's just something secondary to winning a championship."