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Oct. 31, 2012
SEATTLE - Coming off the toughest run on its schedule, the eighth-ranked Husky volleyball team only picks up the pace this week, as UW heads into a stretch of four matches over a seven-day period, beginning this weekend at home against Colorado and Utah. The Huskies (17-4, 8-4 Pac-12) will look to climb back up the conference ladder starting Friday evening at 6 p.m. when Colorado visits Alaska Airlines Arena. Washington then hosts Utah on Sunday in its earliest home start of the season, an 11 a.m. first serve. Both matches will be televised live once again by the Pac-12 Networks. After Sunday's match, UW will have just two days off before playing Wednesday and Thursday nights at Cal and Stanford, respectively. The Huskies are coming off a few hard-luck losses, and looking to put the lessons learned from last week's matches in Los Angeles into practice this weekend. Washington now sits in fifth-place in the league race, but with a three-game gap between itself and California in sixth-place. The Pac-12 still has five teams in the Top-10 of the AVCA poll, with Stanford taking over the No. 1 spot this week and Oregon moving up to No. 2. In the first meeting between the Huskies and Buffaloes this year, Washington swept in Boulder, led by Krista Vansant's 13 kills on a .455 attack percentage and eight blocks from Kylin Muñoz. At Utah on Oct. 5, Washington took a 2-0 lead before losing a close third set, then taking the match in the fourth, 25-20. Washington hit an impressive .361 as a team led by the .565 mark of Kaleigh Nelson who had 15 kills on 23 swings. Colorado and Utah each split two matches last weekend, both losing to Oregon but defeating Oregon State. The Buffs (14-10, 4-8 Pac-12) will play the weekly Wednesday night match tonight in Pullman as they continue a much-improved second season in their new conference. Freshman setter Nicole Edelman ranks eighth in the league in assists and ninth in aces. Utah is 12-13 overall and 3-9 in Pac-12 play, but are one of the nation's strongest blocking teams behind the Huskies, as they average 3.06 blocks per set, second in the conference. Erin Redd is eighth in attack percentage at .358 and Morgan Odale is fourth in the Pac-12 with 0.31 aces per set. Bailey Bateman is second to UW's Amanda Gil in blocks per set at 1.53. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
