WSU volleyball goes west for Apple Cup match
WSU travels to Seattle to take on the Huskies followed by match with University of Oregon
OLIVIA WOLF | DAILY EVERGREEN FILE
WSU senior middle blocker Claire Martin spikes the volleyball against Illinois State University during the Cougar Challenge on Sept. 7.
September 20, 2018
No. 22 WSU women’s volleyball team heads on the road for two tough matches to start Pac-12 play.
First, the Cougars (9-1) will face No. 13 University of Washington (8-2). After that match, they will head down to Oregon to face No. 12 University of Oregon (7-3).
Coming off a 2-1 record and second place finish in the Western Kentucky University tournament, Head Coach Jen Greeny said she was happy with her team’s overall performance in non-conference play. She said it was a good tournament with tough competition.
It took all five sets against East Tennessee State University to beat WSU, but Greeny said she was happy they went the distance.
“You want to be in a tight match like that to see what you’re made of,” Greeny said.
She said the Cougars had a good win against Western Kentucky University to snap their opponent’s 28-game home winning streak but could never find the rhythm against ETSU.
Going five sets was good for the Cougars, and Greeny said she just wanted to see them fix some of the mistakes they made as they prepare for this first weekend of Pac-12 play.
Having two matches spread out over the weekend will be new for WSU as the team is used to playing the tournament-style three games in 24 hours.
“It will be nice to have more time to prepare for just one opponent,” Greeny said.
Rather than preparing overnight and going a lot more on the fly and making in-match adjustments, the Cougars now have more time to recover and have a well-planned out scouting report.
Greeny said now that WSU is in Pac-12 play, it will be facing a high-ranked opponent every weekend. This weekend just happens to be two of them. Greeny is confident that a difficult preseason prepared the team well for Pac-12 and said she wants to continue to get better.
“Two very good teams on the road, we just need to fix some of those mistakes we made last weekend,” Greeny said.
The Cougars will face the Huskies at 8 p.m. Thursday in the Alaska Airlines Arena, and the Ducks at noon Sunday in the Matthew Knight Arena. Both matches can be watched live on Pac-12 Networks.
