Club v-ball ready for last tune-up before Nationals
The conference championship is coming up, but it’s just seen as a stepping-stone to a larger goal — the national championship.
Traveling to Las Vegas for the two-day Mountain West Volleyball Conference tournament, the No. 4 Utah State men’s club volleyball team will be looking to do some fine-tuning and secure a high seed to make a run in nationals.
Although the Aggies are looking to perform well in Las Vegas, the ultimate goal for the team is to win the national championship. And team members feel like they have a good shot at the title.
“I think everybody is feeling really confident. We’ve decided we are going to win the national championship,” said USU middle blocker Brad Davidson. “We’ve decided that we’re good enough, and we’re in a very, very good position to do that.
But before the Aggies get a shot at their goal, they’ll be playing for conference bragging rights.
The final conference tournament is going to be a good opportunity for the team to make a few minor adjustments and have a little bit more opportunity playing together.
“I think it’s going to help us solidify our current lineup,” said Aggie libero Justin Keith. “Give us some experience working with our core group of players that need a little bit more playing time together to finalize the cohesion.”
Davidson said, “We can go through and really execute. Right now we’re really working on defining individual roles on the team. Conference championships will be the last opportunity for us to strengthen those roles and execute as a team.”
The tournament will follow the standard format of pool play on Friday, and then teams will be placed into a bracket for the championship round Saturday based upon how they did in pool play.
Teams from Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado and Nevada will all be in attendance. About 17 teams will be competing.
The biggest challenge for the Aggies could come from No. 3 Arizona. Utah State and Arizona are the top two teams in the conference, with the UA holding the No. 1 spot.
But there is a key difference between the two teams. The Aggies play in Division II while Arizona, the defending national champion, plays in Division I.
Teams decide which division to compete in based upon the level of competition they want to play at.
In its last conference tournament, March 14 and 15, Utah State took second among conference teams, just behind Arizona. In other tournaments, the Aggies have also been finishing just behind top-ranked teams. This experience could pay off in the upcoming tournaments.
“We’ve been playing and beating ranked Division I teams all year,” Davidson said. “I feel we are Division II national champions. We’ve got to get out there and make that happen.”
In the meantime though, the Aggies are looking to take care of business one last time in the conference.
Keith said the Aggies expect to finish well and would like to have another shot at Arizona. Playing against the best team has shown Utah State what it can do.
“Once we saw that we were a team that could elevate our level of play to compete with higher classification, it really boosted our confidence and our mindset as far as goals we could achieve,” Keith said.
To prepare for the conference tournament, the Aggies played a tune-up match against Weber State on Tuesday in the Spectrum. USU defeated the Wildcats 3-1.
Going up 2-0 with 25-23 and 25-21 victories, the Aggies lost a tight third game, 23-25. They were able to rebound though, picking up the fourth game 25-20 for the win.
“I think it was pretty ugly volleyball,” Davidson said. “I think everybody would agree with that, but we pulled off a win. We weren’t really getting our groove on if you will. I think it’s a bonus that we can pull it off in a strange environment, being the Spectrum, where we don’t get to play very often.”
Davidson said there were about 100 fans in attendance, both regulars and new comers.
It was only the second home match of the spring for Utah State. After competing in the conference championship this weekend, the Aggies will take a week off before competing in nationals.
–slbk5@cc.usu.edu