The men’s club volleyball won the Tool Time Tourney at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash. last weekend, picking up where last year’s league championship team left off.
Oregon was without the services of senior outside hitter and vocal leader Vic Elliott, who was unable to make the trip due to academic obligations.
The Ducks also hadn’t seen any of their opponents yet because they hadn’t played in either of the first two tournaments of the year.
“I thought we played really well considering the circumstances,” sophomore setter Devin Curran said. “We played through some adversity and won.”
Curran said that across the board, the level of play in the league improved from last season.
The Ducks went 6-0 overall in the tournament, beating Gonzaga in a tense three-set championship match. The Bulldogs won the first game 25-21, but Oregon took game two 25-23, forcing a decisive third game that the Ducks won 15-11.
Curran attributed the Ducks success in Walla Walla to their solid fundamental play.
“The defense really stepped up and played really well,” he said.
Midway through the championship match, middle blocker Tommy Peterson was forced to leave because of a sprained ankle and the Ducks turned to freshman Andrew Israel to fill the void.
“Andrew really stepped it up in the third game of the championship match,” Curran said.
Though his playing time this year has been very limited, Israel says he is always ready to fill in for an injured teammate.
“That time my number got called,” he said.
The Ducks entered last weekend’s tournament as the number four seed, behind Gonzaga, Western Washington and Washington, but the team expects to be seeded in the first or second spot for this weekend’s PIVA Championships.
Sophomore Pat Clark said the team is very confident going into next weekend’s tournament in Spokane.
Israel will not be the only freshman in the starting lineup — four other freshmen are a part of the regular starting rotation. Despite their youth, the Ducks expect nothing less than another league title, Curran said.
“We’ve got a real good team,” Curran said. “We’re going to be disappointed if we end up not winning the league.”
A league title is especially important, because it means a free trip to Dallas, Texas, for the NIRSA National Volleyball Championships in April. The Ducks would be able to play in the tournament without a league title, but would have to pay their own way.
Curran said the Ducks’ focus in practice this week will revolve around continuing to cut down on careless mistakes and playing at a faster tempo.
The team started its year in less-than-stellar fashion, going 2-6 in a non-league tournament at UC Davis. The team did not do as well as expected, but was not completely discouraged according to Curran.
“Every game was close — it seemed like every match we played went to three games.”
Curran said level of competition at the UC Davis tournament was a lot tougher than anything the Ducks will see in league play, but that the team still should have performed better.
The Ducks have put in extra effort in practice to work on avoiding service errors and playing both faster and smarter than they did at UC Davis.
The team chose to play in Davis because they wanted to measure themselves against stiffer competition, Clark said. The Ducks hope that experience will help them to compete with tougher schools at nationals.
“We feel like after the Davis tournament, we can hang with those kinds of teams and definitely compete,” Clark said.
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