After weeks of spring practice and competition, the Idaho volleyball team will play its final match of the spring at Washington State in a full scrimmage.
Tony Marcolina | Argonaut Alyssa Schultz, sophomore middle blocker, spikes a ball Wednesday in Memorial Gym. The volleyball team finishes the spring season with a scrimmage against Washington State University at 10 a.m. in Pullman.
The Vandals are coming off a tournament at Gonzaga last weekend in which they went 2-1 with wins over Washington State and Gonzaga and a loss to Eastern Washington.
Idaho outside hitter Allison Walker said the team has shown improvement week after week.
“I thought overall it was a pretty good day for us,” Walker said. “We kind of got down in that middle game against Eastern, but overall I thought we did really well.”
The Vandals started the day against Washington State, beating them in three sets. The second match started equally well against Eastern Washington, but Idaho lost the lead and fell. The Vandals came back in the third match to sweep Gonzaga in two sets.
Idaho outside hitter Julia Church said it was a good offensive performance from the team.
“I think we played a lot better than last week’s performance,” Church said. “We seemed to pass better and got our offense going and out other hitters going. It was good to get our middles going in our offense and they had a really good weekend.”
This week the attention shifts to Washington State. The tournaments this spring have all been shorter games, but Saturday at 10 a.m. in Pullman the Vandals and Cougars will play a full match.
Idaho assistant coach Steve Whitaker said the change in format shouldn’t affect the team and said the Vandals have to focus on what they’re doing, not the competition.
“Hopefully we’ve been playing the way that we play,” Whitaker said. “We do what we do and don’t worry about what they do. They’re going to be tough no matter what, so if we take care of what we can do, I think we’ll be fine.”
The Vandals and Cougars have met multiple times this spring and each team holds a win over the other. Church said this weekend has a tie-breaker feel to it.
“This will be our third time playing them and personally I really want to beat them,” Church said. “While winning is always a good feeling, the spring is more about improvement than wins.”
The team had to get used to its new players and learn to communicate as a whole.
“We’ve made a lot of big jumps in a lot of different areas,” Walker said. “We’ve been really working on communicating better and playing more as a team on the court and not just as individuals.”
Whitaker said he wants to see the Vandals finish the spring strong and get ready for the fall.
“We only have one more week of this left, so we’re just going to try to get better with each practice and then have a good day on Saturday and worry more about our side of the net that what WSU’s doing,” Whitaker said. “Just get better at what we have been doing, that’s the size of it, then after that just stay healthy.”
Kevin Bingaman can be reached at [email protected]