Rice University Athletics
Peaking At The Right Time
11/19/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 19, 2009
By MOISEKAPENDA BOWER
Slowly and discouragingly their goals came crumbling down, succumbing to illness and cancelled matches and inconsistencies few would have envisioned before Rice opened the 2009 volleyball season.
The Owls spoke of notching signature non-conference victories, but Oklahoma and Wichita State rolled into Tudor Fieldhouse and strolled away triumphant. The Owls aimed to hold serve at home in Conference USA action, but Tulane and Tulsa saddled Rice with consecutive home losses in early October. As for the Owls' C-USA regular-season title hopes, a source of motivation coinciding with the relocation into Tudor Fieldhouse, they were eliminated by three consecutive road defeats.
But a funny thing happened down the path to disappointment: the Owls refocused and regrouped, and rebounded to resume pursuit of their primary goal - a berth and first-round victory in the NCAA Tournament.
"It really just shows how much this team wants to be successful," Rice coach Genny Volpe said of the five-match winning streak the Owls will carry into the Conference USA tournament beginning Friday at Tudor Fieldhouse. "We tried to lay it out for them like look, this is the situation we are in and we can't look at the past. All we can do is look at the future, and we're one of the teams that still has a chance to make it to the NCAA Tournament, which has been our ultimate goal.
"There are a lot of teams out there where their season is pretty much over; we're definitely not one of those teams. Let's do the best that we can possibly do and work on getting better and improving and peaking at the right time. The fact that the team embraced it instead of pouting really shows a lot about how much they really want to be successful."
Perspectives shifted for the Owls, the fourth seed at the C-USA tournament, following their loss at Tulsa on Oct. 25. After being tabbed by observers as the preseason favorites to win the league, the Owls stood just one game over .500 at 6-5 by the close of their losing skid. The season to that point had been a study of fluctuations, from the high of a 7-1 start to the low of two losses in three matches at the Mizuno Invitational II, an event where the Owls' underwhelming performances were directly attributed to the flu bug that ravaged the roster.
Three Owls were weakened the weekend of Sept. 11-12 as Rice stumbled to South Carolina and Wichita State. The following weekend the Owls were scheduled to participate in the UTSA Classic and eyeing RPI boosts with matches against Middle Tennessee and Washington. But before Rice could bus to San Antonio three more players contracted the flu, upping the total to six. Two were infected with H1N1, and a 96-hour quarantine was ordered, cancelling the Owls' UTSA Classic appearance.
The Owls struggled to steady themselves even with their return to health. The won six of eight matches following their resumption of play but both losses came at home, undermining their stated goal to protect the Tudor Fieldhouse court. Then came the road skid, and suddenly the Owls' season rested on the brink of collapse. That peril subsided quickly.
"After (the loss at Tulsa) we said it's really time for us to pick it up," Owls junior setter Meredith Schamun said. "We don't have a chance to win a regular-season conference (championship) but we need to make sure that we have the best possible finish we can have going into the tournament because that's going to be important when it comes down to looking at NCAA entry bids. We really made a choice before winning those five games to say we need to have the best finish we possibly can.
"We were frustrated with the way the season was going because we never would have guessed that we would have a slump in the middle. It was at a point that we finally said this needs to stop and we need to do the best we can to finish up strong. Everybody was on the same page to get it done."
Volpe witnessed a change almost immediately. The consistency with which the Owls sought to perform manifested and remained. Instead of playing defensively the Owls went on the attack for exceptional results. The Owls adhered to the standard `one game at a time' manta and simply rebuilt their confidence. Instead of wallowing in self-pity over the unexpected obstacles their slowed their charge to the top of the league standings, the Owls worked that much harder to hurdle them.
Simply stated, Rice started reaching its vast potential by applying its considerable talent. Four Owls earned all-conference honors - Schamun, junior libéro Tracey Lam, sophomore outside hitter Ashleigh McCord and senior middle blocker Natalie Bogan. Schamun ranks ninth nationally in assists/set at 11.89 while Lam ranks 10th in digs/set with 5.45. As a team the Owls rank second in kills (14.68/set), fifth in assists (13.84/set) and eighth in digs (18.03/set). When the Owls defeated Tulane for the first time since 2005, a startling sweep in New Orleans on Nov. 6, they suddenly resembled the squad most expected them to be.
"Once that happened it was like they put their foot on the gas and were just like, `Let's go. We can win conference,'" Volpe said. "We just beat a team that's always in the top two or three in conference, so then the confidence started to grow. The confidence of the team has had its ups and its downs ... but now I think it's the strongest it's ever been."
One significant challenge remains. Since C-USA reconfigured in 2005, no team that has hosted the postseason tournament as won the event. In fact, the tournament host has failed to reach the final in each of the last four postseasons. Sitting firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble, the Owls need to at least reach the C-USA final to improve their chances at an at-large bid, and the only way they can assure themselves entry into the field is to win the title many predicted they would claim months ago.
The Owls can bank on the knowledge that they compare favorably with the top three seeds. They dropped a hotly contested, five-set match at No. 1 seed Southern Miss and split their two matches with third-seeded Tulane. Tulsa swept the Owls during the regular season, but the team the Golden Hurricane thumped late last month has yielded to a squad with a renewed sense of purpose to complete the task set before them.
"There's a little bit of pressure. There's always going to be pressure when you want something badly," Bogan said. "But we're coming into it confidently. I'm excited that we are doing this my senior year in a beautiful gym. I think home-court advantage will really help us out a lot. Just having our fans here cheering us on is going to be a nice thing."
