The Oregon volleyball team is hungry, and a Thanksgiving dinner is not going to satisfy any appetites.
With the treacherous conditions of Pacific-1 0 Conference volleyball now gone, the Ducks (10-17 overall, 2-16 Pac-10) are prepared to end the year with a championship trophy.
No, first-year head coach Carl Ferreira and the Ducks have not met their lofty goal of making a postseason berth for the first time since 1989. But they are treating the New Mexico State Thanksgiving Classic as if it were a potential NCAA tournament appearance.
“Carl wants us to get the feeling of what it’s like to be in the postseason,” junior setter Julie Gerlach said. “We’re looking to take the tournament.”
Outside of the Pac-10 this year, the Ducks have lost just once, and that was against top-ranked Hawaii in sunny Honolulu.
“We have had a lot of non-conference success, and we know that we have the better athletes,” Gerlach said. “We just can’t let them out-compete us.”
Oregon’s first opponent in Las Cruces, N.M. will be Texas-El Paso, a team that is 14-13 overall this season and 6-8 in the Western Athletic Conference.
In the second match, the Ducks will face the host school New Mexico State (13-17 overall, 9-9 Sun Belt Conference).
The Ducks finished Pacific-10 Conference play last weekend with losses to Stanford and California, and have been hampered by some ball control problems in the past few weeks.
“We have had some ball control struggles,” Gerlach said, “but I don’t see it as a big issue this weekend. This is the time to be at our best… we have to elevate our level of play.”

And the winner is…
It was announced Tuesday that junior outside hitter Monique Tobbagi was selected to the All-Pac-10 Honorable Mention team. Additionally, sophomore setter Sydney Chute, Gerlach and senior blocker Halie Mazza were honorably mentioned to the Pac-10 All-Academic team.
Arizona junior setter Dana Burkholder was named the Pac-10 Player of the Year, and her coach, David Rubio shared the honor of coach of the year with USC’s Jerritt Elliott.
For the first time ever, a team other than Stanford and UCLA claimed the crown as Pac-10 champion. This year, Arizona (24-3, 16-2) and Southern Cal (24-2, 16-2) shared the title.