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Volleyball team to spend holiday break in Tucson

The UA women's volleyball team will play a rare holiday home game this weekend as they take on No. 3 Hawaii and Texas-El Paso in the Starwoods Plaza Hotel Thanksgiving Tournament at McKale Center.

UA head coach David Rubio is glad to have the action despite the holiday.

"This is the first time we've played over the Thanksgiving holiday in six years," he said. "I'm glad that we finally have some competition. We used to go two weeks without playing anybody."

The Wildcats face the third-ranked Rainbow Warriors Friday night at 7.

"Hawaii is one of the best teams in the country," Rubio said. "It's nice for us to get experience against a final-four type of team."

Following a 10:30 match with the Miners on Saturday morning, a team the Wildcats beat in the first match of the season, the regular season will come to a halt for UA.

All the Wildcats can do then is just sit and wait as the NCAA Tournament seedings come out Sunday, just in time for UA to catch their breath prior to the biggest matches of the season. As it currently stands, UA is ranked 18th in the nation. A win over Hawaii would definitely increase their chances of a good seed.

"We need to have good competition considering the tournament seeds come out Sunday," Rubio said. "I've been happy with the way we've played so far this season against ranked teams."

Despite posting a losing record against ranked teams this season, Rubio believes the team has been improving of late.

"We've made great progress despite our youth and the circumstances that occurred earlier in the season."

The All-Pacific 10 Conference teams were announced yesterday and junior middle blocker Marisa DaLee along with sophomore setter Dana Burkholder have been named to the first team.

UA joins only Stanford and UCLA to have multiple representatives on the 12-player squad.

The honor was DaLee's second in a row, joining Terry Lauchner (1988-89) and Barb Bell (1993, 95-96) to be the only Arizona players to enjoy the award twice.

Outside hitter Lisa Rutledge earned first team All-Freshman honors along with honorable mention All-Pac-10 accolades.