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Volleyball team confident in quest for National Championship

By Brian Penso
ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Thursday December 13, 2001

The UA women's volleyball team reached new heights last weekend as it qualified for the team's first ever Final Four appearance.

However, members on the team say they are not satisfied with just making it to the Final Four - they have their eyes set on the school's first ever women's volleyball championship.

"We are excited to reach the school's first ever Final Four," said senior middle blocker Erin Sebbas. "We still realize that we have two matches left to reach a national championship. We are really excited, but focused at the same time."

Standing in their way tonight is top ranked Long Beach State, who has not lost a match all season.

LBSU (32-0 overall) is undefeated, but has not played as tough a schedule as the Wildcats.

Long Beach State is the Big West Champion, which has two other quality teams beside themselves - Santa Barbara, and Pacific.

LBSU's only other quality wins this season came against No. 2 Nebraska and ninth ranked Hawaii.

Santa Barbara, Pacific and Hawaii were ranked in the top 25 this season, but none of these schools were a consistent top 10 team.

On the other hand, Arizona (25-4) comes in as the fifth ranked team in the country by finishing third in the Pacific-10 Conference.

The Pac-10 is the strongest volleyball conference in the country - No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 USC and No. 8 UCLA all made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament.

Arizona's four losses came at the hands of the above teams, who at one point were all ranked in the top five.

UA head coach David Rubio said that the Wildcats are not intimidated by the only undefeated team in the country.

"We don't care," Rubio said. "We are not intimidated by anyone at this stage of the game. We are confident that our conference has allowed us to play against a level of competition that will prepare us for the matches that we will face. Long Beach is very good, but they have not played a tough schedule."

Defensively, the Wildcats will have to stop senior Tayyiba Haneef, who has 504 kills to lead the Forty Niners.

Besides Haneef, Arizona will have to stop senior Cheryl Weaver, who is a two time All-American.

To counter, the Wildcats will look to continue their balanced offensive attack.

In its Elite Eight match with USC, the Wildcats' outside hitters all finished with a double-digit kill effort and the middles-junior Stefani Saragosa and Sebbas combined for 17 kills.

Rubio said that the key to the match will be the team that can serve and pass the most efficiently.

One advantage the Wildcats have is that more than half of their team is from Southern California and four players aree from San Diego.

"We feel this was the ideal scenario because of our San Diego players," Rubio said. "We could not of been any better for us unless we were playing in McKale. We feel good about our chances and if we play with confidence, we will be in good shape."

Saragosa said that making it to the Final Four was special, but having the chance to share it with all of her friends and family will make it even more exciting.

"There is always a first time for everything, but going home makes it even sweeter," Saragosa said. "We are in front of lot of friends and family and we are going to show everyone."

The dream of bringing home a first National Championship starts tonight for the Wildcats.

 
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