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UA News
Volleyball impressive in weekend sweep of UO, OSU

By Brian Penso
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday October 21, 2002

The UA women's volleyball team has been battling inconsistency and imbalance in its offensive attack during the first half of the season, but that all changed this weekend in its road trip to the state of Oregon.

The No. 19 Wildcats were firing on all cylinders offensively, and freshmen Bre Ladd and Kim Glass led the way.

Arizona (10-7 overall, 5-4 Pacific 10 Conference) dominated Oregon and Oregon State as it swept both teams 3-0 to mark the first time UA has gone on the road this season and come away with a sweep.

"(Head coach) Dave (Rubio) told us that we can't underestimate weaker opponents," senior outside hitter Shannon Torregrosa said. "You don't want to go out and play down to their level. We need to play at a higher level and we did that this weekend. It was good that we were able to go in and take care of business."

Reigning Pac-10 player of the week Glass finished the weekend with a team-high 32 kills.

Glass has been averaging over 20 kills a contest over UA's last five matches, and one would think Arizona would have struggled with Glass only averaging 16 kills a contest against the Oregon schools.

However, Arizona was able to set the middle attackers, as freshman Bre Ladd finished with 20 kills.

"Bre was awesome," Torregrosa said. " Laurie (Gardner) set the middles really well and Bre played great."

Torregrosa, who returned to the outside this weekend, added 18 kills for Arizona. Senior outside hitter Lisa Rutledge, who was coming off the worst performance of her stellar career against California, bounced back with 22 kills.

Senior Christina Frost said the consistency of each player has been a problem this season, but everyone has always bounced back after a tough match, and that was the case with Rutledge.

"We have had a consistency problem this season," Frost said. "We are getting a lot better. Some have had bad nights, but they have always bounced back. That shows we are becoming an older, more mature team, by our level of consistency."

Glass led the way against the Ducks with a match-high 20 kills, but against OSU, Arizona had four players record double-digit kills öö Glass, Rutledge, Ladd and Torregrosa.

Going into the weekend, Rubio wanted to make sure the Wildcats continued to get the middle blockers more involved in the offense and he wanted to continue to pressure opponents with UA's service game.

The Wildcats finished the weekend with 14 service aces compared to a combined three aces between the two Oregon schools. Earlier in the season, UA's poor service game was costly, causing it to give other teams free points due to service errors, but it has improved each time it steps on the floor and that was apparent this weekend.

"Serving is so important," Frost said. "We gave so many points away early in the season and now we are getting easy points with our tough serving."

With the Wildcats above .500 in conference for the first time this season, they look to improve on that as they host in-state rival Arizona State Friday.

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