Volleyball taking part in four-team, two-city tournament
The Central Michigan women’s volleyball team hits the road again this weekend in what may be the toughest non-conference tournament they will compete in all season.
The team travels to Wisconsin Friday to participate in the Milwaukee-Marquette Invitational tournament. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Wisconsin-Madison and Creighton round out the two-city, four-team tournament.
CMU begins the weekend at 1 p.m. Friday against UW-Milwaukee (2-4), a team they feel closely rivals previous opponent Niagara.
Senior outside hitter Lauren Krupsky said the team learned a lot from last weekend’s matches and will be prepared for the tough competition ahead this weekend.
“The competition is going to be a lot better so we want to just take where we left off last weekend and build from that,” Krupsky said.
One area where Krupsky said her and the Chippewas can exploit Milwaukee is on deep shots. Offensively, CMU is hitting at a .201 percentage and tallied a .298 percentage last weekend against Youngstown State.
“We’re really good at hitting deep shots and having a lot of variety, and they seem to be sucked in a lot on their defense, which is going to be to our advantage,” Krupsky said.
The second match of the weekend will see the Chippewas compete at noon on Saturday against undefeated Wisconsin. The Badgers come into the match with a perfect 6-0 record, having not lost a game all season behind the efforts of a defensive effort that has held opponents to a .056 hitting percentage.
To combat a talented Wisconsin squad, CMU head coach Erik Olson has been practicing the team hard and keying on everyone being a quicker on their feet and making more timely decisions.
“I think the biggest thing is that we need to train,” Olson said. “We are a half-step slow against the top 25. We still need to get stopped a little sooner, and our first step needs to be a little quicker.”
The final test of the weekend will be at 6:30 p.m. Saturday against Creighton. The 3-4 Bluejays come into the weekend after a pair of wins against Wake Forest and Iowa. Their strong offensive attack is led by senior Alicia Runge, who amassed 54 kills last weekend.
CMU will look for big contributions again from Krupsky (4.1 kills per set) and junior Catherine Ludwig (11.3 assists per game) who helped the team to three wins last weekend at the Youngstown State Invitational.
