Senior outside hitter Gorana Maricic (pronounced GORN-uh mar-EE-cheech) is humble when asked about her success while wearing an Oregon uniform. She says the National Player of the Week award she earned after consecutive wins over top-10 opponents on Nov. 12, 2007 is a testament to how good her teammates are. The same goes for her AVCA Second-Team All-American title.
“I seriously couldn’t get any of these accomplishments without my team,” she said. “My name is printed next to the University of Oregon.”
But before Oregon, the Serbian made a name for herself at Division II Northwood University in Michigan, where she was also a Second-Team All-American in 2005. She transferred after that year and redshirted in 2006 before starting as a junior last year.
Prior to that, she played with the Serbian National team for three years, something she said was a good learning experience, though she lacked maturity.
“I was really young,” Maricic said. “I didn’t have any experience, but in the end it gave me things I really needed to work on.”
And work on her game she did. After excelling at Northwood and transferring to Eugene, she has turned heads in what is arguably the toughest conference ever. With five teams ranked above No. 11 Oregon, it’s easy to say that the Pacific-10 Conference has a stranglehold on volleyball. In the 27 years that volleyball has been a contested NCAA sport, the Pac-10 has won 13 national championships and has had 12 second-place finishes.
“The Pac-10 is a very hard conference,” Maricic said. “You can never relax when you’re playing a team because you have no idea who might be the next team to surprise you. It’s good preparation for the NCAA tournament.”
That’s something that Oregon hasn’t missed since Maricic’s arrival. The past two years the team has made the NCAA tournament field of 64 teams, and last season Maricic led the Ducks to the Sweet 16, where they lost to conference rival UCLA.
“It was really disappointing losing to them because we know we could’ve done better,” Maricic said. “We could’ve gone higher. We were happy that we made it as far as we did, but it’s still bittersweet.
That mindset was what drove Maricic to improve her defense this summer. She has always been known as an offensive player, but she wanted to improve her blocking and digging to become a more all-around player.
“I’m really excited,” she said. “Coach Moore’s focus on blocking and digging has given me the opportunity to improve in an area that I struggled in.”
But of course, struggling for Maricic isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds. She set a career high in digs with 20 against Washington last September, and she has had matches of seven blocks twice.
Adding the defensive game to her repertoire makes Maricic that much more of an intimidating player. She led the Pac-10 in kills per game with 5.5, which was also good enough to place fourth nationally. She also broke Oregon’s all-time season mark for points at 679.5.
All the improvement by Maricic and her teammates leads up to this season. Expectations are high for the program in Moore’s fourth season with the Ducks. As far as Maricic’s concerned, though, the Ducks could be locked up and not hear anything about their ranking or what they’re supposed to do; that’s for the media to play with.
“We don’t talk about the end until we are there. We can’t lose focus. The season is too tough for us to worry about NCAAs.”
But inevitably, the end is near for Maricic. The senior is going to graduate in December, and after this year she is faced with a very real decision: What now? Maricic thought about it for awhile, and she has some options.
“I might have an opportunity to play professionally in Puerto Rico, which would be amazing because it’s paradise,” she said. “Or Europe again. I know I do still want to play.”
But that’s the future, and for now Maricic is content with worrying about who the next opponent is.
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