The trip to Washington D.C. couldn’t have been much sweeter for the Oregon volleyball team. The Ducks dispatched the Delaware Blue Hens Friday night, then came right back the next night and knocked off North Carolina to punch its ticket to Austin, Texas, for the Sweet 16.
“It’s good anytime you win,” junior Sonja Newcombe said. “We’re very excited to now go to Texas, but it’ll be all business, and we’ll keep our focus.”
Next up is a match up with Iowa State (21-12) this Friday after the Cyclones upset the sixth-seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers 3-1 on Saturday.
The action now shifts to Austin, where head coach Jim Moore coached the Longhorns for four years. If the Ducks beat the Cyclones on Friday, they would play the winner of the Texas-UCLA match on Saturday, Dec. 13.
On Friday, though, things started off well for the Ducks (25-8), who rolled with a 3-0 sweep against Delaware in the first round. They won by scores of 25-16, 25-18, 25-15, and held the Blue Hens to .066 hitting. As a team the Ducks hit .378 with only eight hitting errors, but Moore thought that his team played tight.
“Overall I think we played OK,” Moore said. “I think we were a little tight and anxious before, and that’s good because you’re supposed to be before an NCAA tournament game.”
However, Newcombe thinks the team is slowly getting used to the NCAA setting.
“The first time we played a match like this two years ago we were nervous about every little new thing,” she said. “But we were relaxed and confident coming in this year. We were really excited to play and get on the court. We’re looking forward to building through every match.”
Senior Gorana Maricic and Newcombe, who were voted to the All-Pacific-10 Volleyball team early last week, led the Ducks with 10 kills each. Maricic also added 10 digs.
In the second night of play, the Ducks faced a familiar opponent in the Tar Heels. Oregon swept them in Illinois in the second match of the year, and this time it wasn’t much different.
The Ducks beat them 3-1 by scores of 25-20, 24-26, 25-19, 25-19, led by a team-high 18 kills from Newcombe. Senior Kristen Forristall had a career-high 15 kills, Maricic added 17 kills and 10 digs, and junior Neticia Enesi contributed 11 kills and two blocks in the win.
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