Final regular season home weekend for CMU volleyball
One big weekend stands between the Central Michigan volleyball team’s winning streak and a shot at the Mid-American Conference West division championship.
The Chippewas welcome rival Western Michigan Friday night and Northern Illinois Saturday night as they attempt to stretch their winning streak to seven matches and take out a couple teams ahead of them in the MAC West standings.
“It’s a very good one-two punch and this time around, their rankings are the highest they’ve been,” said head coach Erik Olson. “It’s a pretty powerful weekend.”
The Broncos come in ranked No. 34 in the nation in RPI rankings, while the Huskies are ranked No. 23. CMU is ranked No. 105 in the nation out of 327 teams.
“It should be a must-win,” said senior middle blocker Kaitlyn Schultz. “It’s our last home matches and we think it should be an exciting atmosphere.”
But Olson isn’t worried about the rankings and believes they’re a non-factor when it comes to playing WMU and NIU. He looks at these matches as a great opportunity for his team to show what it has.
There is a big difference between this team now from where it was five weeks ago when it started MAC play in DeKalb, Ill. and Kalamazoo.
“We’ve come together and we’ve learned how to finish, which is a big improvement from last year to this year,” Schultz said. “We’re working together and communicating better.”
Schultz and junior outside hitter Val DeWeerd were returning off calf injuries and still weren’t at 100 percent while junior right side hitter Jocelyn VerVelde was still out the last time these teams met.
They’re all back and Olson has a full roster in his arsenal.
“Last time we played them (WMU and NIU) we had three players out of position,” Olson said.
When the Chippewas faced the Broncos, CMU recorded 13 errors, when it can’t have a repeat of that if it hopes to win this weekend.
“We just need to play cleaner volleyball and make them play,” Olson said. “We had them scouted pretty well last time and executed without three players, so I’m excited to go with our lineup.”
NIU
The Huskies present different problems as they have sophomore outside hitter Lauren Wicinski leading the way. She won MAC Freshman of the Year and MAC Player of the Year. She is the first player to ever win both awards in the same year.
“They (NIU) have a great team and they use one player (Wicinski) a lot.” Olson said. “I don’t know if you can stop her, but you have to slow her down.”
Olson lives by the "You can’t stop, you can only hope to contain," mindset when it comes to her.
“Most teams have tried to completely shut her down, but that leaves the rest of the team wide open,” Olson said. “I don’t think you can ever discount five other players.”
However, the Chippewas have home court advantage (5-1 at home) and it will be seniors Schultz and setter Catherine Ludwig’s final home matches, so the team will be riding a lot of emotion to go with its confidence from its winning streak.
“It’s sad, I won’t be here again, but very exciting for senior day because I haven’t had one of those since high school,” Schultz said. “It should be really exciting to see what happens.”
