Jim Moore’s message to his team was simple.
“We’ve got to finish games,” the Oregon volleyball coach said.
Is that the biggest thing?
“It’s the only thing,” he said.
After consecutive losses last weekend when the Oregon volleyball team had chances to win games against No. 10 California and No. 2 Stanford, the Ducks head for Los Angeles looking to rediscover the spark that has made them the No. 19 team in the nation.
Oregon held leads in the first two games against Cal, but lost both and even though they won game three, the Ducks lost the match in four. The next night against Stanford, Oregon lost all three games despite opportunities to win games one and two and even game three outside of a couple lapses.
“That’s such a cliché to say, ‘Is it just a mental thing?’” Moore said. “The answer is yes, but that is 90 percent of what we do so it’s how do you deal with pressure, how do you work real hard when you’re supposed to win and focus on that.”
UCLA is first for Oregon with a match set for tonight at 7 p.m. The Ducks then head over to USC on Friday for a 7 p.m. match.
“Are we happy with what happened this past week? The answer is no,” Moore said. “Are we pleased with where we are in terms of what we think we can do? The answer is yes. We proved we are right there with the best team in the country for two games anyways, which means nothing, but we do have the ability to be right there and that’s what we’ve got to figure out.”
UCLA won its only match last week against crosstown rival USC in four games. The Bruins are 3-1 so far in Pacific-10 Conference play. The lone conference loss was a three-game sweep to Stanford. UCLA, at 14-2 overall, fell to 2006 NCAA champion Nebraska in its other defeat.
The Bruins’ attack is guided by Ali Daley, who leads the team with 3.96 kills a game, followed by Kaitlin Sather at 3.49 and Rachell Johnson at 3.30. Daley also tops the team with 20 service aces. Johnson has 18.
USC, which is 14-2 overall and 3-2 in conference, has the aforementioned loss to USC and a defeat by Stanford. Asia Kaczor is the top hitter for USC with 4.27 kills a game and 256 overall.
Oregon earned a reprieve after its last two losses and remained at No. 19 in the CSTV/AVCA Coaches Poll top 25.
“I think every time that we’ve had a tough loss or had something affect us that we’ve turned around and done a really great job learning from that,” middle blocker Sonja Newcombe said. “So I expect that we will go down and play our guts out – play as hard as we possibly can – ’cause I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
The difference between this year’s Oregon squad and last year’s – which had a seven-match losing streak in conference play – is noticeable, according to Jim Moore. Physically they are stronger, he said, allowing the team to respond from a tough loss one night and compete the next.
“The character of this team is unquestionable on how good it is,” Moore said. “They’re going to always fight. They’re going to always work hard. They’re trying everything they can. No one’s out here trying to lose on purpose and we’re good. We just have to figure out how to overcome those little things to push through those games.”
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