Volleyball team plays No. 3 Illinois in NCAA Tournament
Central Michigan volleyball will play in the NCAA Tournament tonight for the first time in program history.
The Chippewas make the trip to Champaign, Ill., to play the No. 3 Illinois at 7 p.m. in the first round of the 64-team tournament.
“We have to come out of the gate really hard and play with high emotion,” said head coach Erik Olson. “If we pass in-system, we can play with speed and if we don’t play (Illinois) with speed, we’re done.”
The odds are stacked up against CMU. The Chippewas come in as the lowest-rated team in the region, playing the third-best team in the nation and traveling to Illinois home arena (Huff Hall). On paper it appears they have no chance.
Then again, Chippewas weren’t supposed to win the Mid-American Conference Championship, but they did.
The team feels it has nothing to lose.
“Illinois has quite a bit to lose where we have very little,” Olson said. “We only have one opportunity to lose, so we want to take advantage of that.”
CMU hopes to play like it did in the MAC Tournament when it took out Northern Illinois, Ohio and Western Michigan, two of which are still in the NCAA Tournament - NIU and WMU.
“We just need to take it like we did in the MAC Tournament, one game at a time and keep playing our volleyball,” said senior middle blocker Kaitlyn Schultz. “We can’t worry about who is on the other side.”
This isn’t the first time the Chippewas and the Fighting Illini have played each other. The two have met six previous times and CMU holds the 4-2 advantage.
“I’m looking forward to playing them and playing someone outside of the MAC,” Schultz said.
The MAC hasn’t prepared the Chippewas for what they’re about to face, but they did see Iowa from the Big Ten Conference on Aug. 26, losing in five sets.
“We haven’t seen anything like (Illinois) in the MAC,” Olson said. “We have Northern Illinois as a low-contact team whereas Illinois is a high contact so we have been working on our defense behind our blockers.”
If CMU gets the upset, it faces either Marquette or Western Kentucky on Saturday for a shot at a spot in the final 16 teams.
