JON HELGASON/Arizona Daily Wildcat Freshmen Bre Ladd (left) and Kim Glass (right) look for the block against a Stanford hitter in the Wildcats' upset victory last week. Glass and Ladd take on the two Oregon schools tonight and tomorrow on the road.

Volleyball seeks consistency during two-game road trip to Oregon schools

The Arizona women's volleyball team has been trying to come together and become a consistent, cohesive unit over the first half of the season.

Last Friday, the Wildcats upset the No. 4 and defending National Champion Stanford Cardinal and it seemed that they finally gained the consistency that head coach David Rubio has been looking for.

That was not the case as UA came out the following night and played one of its worst matches of the season in a 0-3 loss to California.

However, this weekend may be exactly what the doctor has ordered for the Wildcats as they hit the road to take on Oregon tonight and Oregon State tomorrow.

Arizona swept the season series last season, and both the Ducks and Beavers have not shown much improvement.

The two schools round out the bottom two spots in the Pacific 10 Conference and they have managed only one conference win between the two of them.

One would think that No. 19 Arizona (8-7 overall, 3-4 Pac-10) would have no problem with either school, but the young Wildcats have been notorious for playing down to the level of their opponents all season.

"It is really important for us to win both matches this weekend," freshman outside hitter Kim Glass said. "We need to show that we are a consistent team. I think we will show that this weekend."

Offensively, the Wildcats are led by Glass, who has recorded 109 kills on a 6.08 kill per game average over UA's past four matches.

Besides Glass, the Wildcats will try to continue to set middle blockers, senior Shannon Torregrosa and freshman Bre Ladd, who have both have become more involved over the past two weeks in the Arizona offensive attack.

"We have been practicing really hard this week," senior Lisa Rutledge said. "We have been working on getting the middles the ball more. If we can do that, our entire offense will begin to open up."

With this trip marking the end of the first half of the season, Arizona realizes that defeating the Oregon Schools are very important for them to stay in the conference race.

However, Rubio has continued to instill in the players' mind that all that matters is improving and preparing for the postseason.

"It is important for us to win, but we just have to continue to improve," Torregrosa said. "Dave was telling us yesterday that the 1997 basketball team lost a lot of games but they kept improving and they won the national championship. We just have to keep coming together as a team and continue to improve."

That may be the case, but if Arizona wants to move up from its No. 6 spot in the Pac-10, they can ill afford to lose to the Oregon Schools this weekend.