UA Volleyball team poised for tourney

After all, with a win Saturday against Golden Eagles and Sunday over the Tennessee Tech/No. 20 Colorado winner, Arizona (20-6 overall, 12-6 Pacific 10 Conference) faces a possible matchup against Stanford next weekend.

And the Wildcats need to make the most of their time to try to formulate a plan to defeat the defending national champions.

"We're only taking one match at a time," said coach Dave Rubio, who is making his fourth tournament appearance in five years. "This time we have a very competitive first and second round. For me right now I'm trying not to look too far down the road because if we don't take care of business, it doesn't matter."

The 10th-ranked Wildcats play Oral Roberts (28-9 overall, 8-0 Mid-Continent Conference) at the Coors Events Conference Center in Boulder, Colo., Saturday night at 5:30 to open the single-elimination tournament. Then, assuming Arizona defeats the Golden Eagles and notches a win in Sunday's 7:30 p.m. second round match, it faces the Cardinal in Palo Alto, Calif., the following weekend.

"Every focus is on Oral Roberts. Once we get past the we'll talk about what we need to do (against future) opponents," said Rubio, whose team lost to Pacific in the second round last season.

The unranked Golden Eagles, who won 25 straight matches at one point, are making their third-straight trip to the tournament. Last season they lost in the opening round at Colorado. Half of ORU's lineup is from Brazil, which, according to Rubio, means they have a lot of experience and "are pretty good ball handlers."

The Golden Eagles are led by Juliana Moser, a sophomore middle blocker who averages 3.73 kills per game while hitting .349. UA's coaching staff didn't know anything about its opponent except that more than half of its lineup is foreign and that the school is in Oklahoma.

Rubio received game tape Tuesday and on Wednesday the team got the scouting report and finally saw the Golden Eagles in action.

"When the scouting reports were handed out Dave started talking about all of their players and I was like, 'okay, pop in the tape. Let's go. I don't want to hear anything else. I just want to see them playing,'" senior Michaela Ebben said.

Once the Wildcats viewed the tape, they immediately noticed Oral Roberts' uptempo offense.

Earlier this season, the Golden Eagles took a game from fourth-ranked Wisconsin, a top eight seed in the tournament, and nearly defeated Washington, losing 15-17 in the fifth game.

"They're certainly capable of beating a ranked team," Rubio said. "They're obviously very good and have some talent."