Vaunted class gunning for few more weeks of tourney play together
Arizona volleyball seniors Angie Ayers, Kim Glass, Jennifer Abernathy and Bre Ladd are pretty certain Saturday's Senior Day won't be the last time they're together in McKale Center.
Next time, they hope, it will be to raise a banner to the rafters.
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"I think that's what we keep thinking about," said Glass, who became Arizona's all-time leader in kills on Oct. 29. "(We're) taking it one game at a time so that we'll be able to look to the Final Four and win. I don't think anyone is thinking anything short of that."
Ayers, a fifth-year senior, is the only current Wildcat to have advanced to the Final Four and brings extensive postseason experience, as she was part of the 2001 team that reached the national semifinals.
She said the difference between the 2001 team and this year's squad is that this season No. 6 Arizona has its sights set on the game's biggest prize.
"With the 2001 team, the whole season we talked about getting to the Final Four," said Ayers, who was a redshirt freshman that season. "But what happened when we got to the Final Four is we didn't think about the National Championship. This (season's) team I think (it's about) just realizing the ultimate goal of a national championship."
Bolstered by the talent of their senior class, the Wildcats appear to have a good shot at returning to the Final Four.
Glass, Ladd and Abernathy made up the nation's No. 1 recruiting class in 2002, and it's only appropriate that all three reached the 1,000-kill milestone in their senior campaigns.
Arizona head coach Dave Rubio said that at the conclusion of this season it will become clear whether the group exceeded its initial expectations.
"I couldn't be happier with what has gone on, but I don't think we've won as much as we thought we would have won," he said. "If you were to judge it on winning and losing, we haven't accomplished those things that we thought we would accomplish by now in the first three years. But it's been a good run for them."
Ladd said that although the excitement has died down since the trio's arrival on campus, she still anticipates added pressure come this postseason.
"I think we do - especially this year - have something to prove because we were such a talented class coming in," she said. "We've just been trying to get our whole program better and now we're the sixth (best) team in the country. I feel like we've done what we've come to do so far, but the end of the season will be the test."
Abernathy said the seniors are unsure of how they are going to react on Saturday, but that they do not expect an overly emotional match and instead are focused on bringing down No. 16 UCLA, which gave No. 2 Washington its first loss of the season Saturday.
"We're just going into it right now like it's a normal game," she said. "For me, it totally has not sunk in. That's why we're like, 'I wonder how we're going to act.' It has not hit me. I keep saying that I don't feel like it's going to hit me until our last game period."
If the Wildcats had it their way, that last game would be a month in the making.
If Arizona secures victories in its final four regular-season matches, the seniors would not only be able to play together until as long as Dec. 17, the last day of the NCAA Finals, but also increase their chances of playing together in McKale again.
The Wildcats are in line to host first- and second-round NCAA Tournament games in early December.
The players aren't the only ones who don't see their season ending any time soon.
"The hope is that we can take it all the way for five more weeks," Rubio said. "You just take it one match at a time right now. We know it's not going to be our last matches (this weekend)."