By Marcia Gaysue
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
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The Arizona men's club volleyball team got a chance to relax this weekend, playing its last home games of the season.
The No. 2 Wildcats hosted a three-day tournament at the Student Recreation Center that featured men's volleyball teams from all over Arizona.
"This tournament was just to get us more playing time against teams that we never play against," said senior outside hitter Britt Burridge.
Although the tournament was for fun, the team did not play like a 15-1 group.
Arizona lost to the No. 1 seed Walton, which includes three former Division-I players and the No. 3 seed Sound Packaging. The Wildcats did not advance to the championship game.
"We really did not play as well as we should have," said sophomore middle blocker Marcus T. Smith. "First we started off real slow and then started getting lackadaisical, but we started to come together in our third game."
Head coach David Nobrega said his team did not play their best, but he is happy the team got a chance to compete against some high-quality teams before they head to their next tournament.
So far this season, the team has played well in other tournaments, winning the Arizona Desert Thunder at home and placing second at the Colorado Rockies Mountain Classic, losing their only game of the season to Colorado.
"The past two tournaments we played in, we played excellent all the way around; the starters, the bench, everyone did great," Nobrega said.
The Wildcats will compete in the Great Western Tournament this weekend at San Diego State. The tournament will feature the top 12 club teams in the nation including No. 3 Colorado, No. 4 Illinois, No. 7 Cal-Poly and No. 10 Purdue.