Postseason Dawns For Oregon Volleyball
11/29/17 | Women's Volleyball, @GoDucksMoseley
Battle-tested after the grueling Pac-12 season, Oregon opens the NCAA Tournament against Kennesaw State in Utah on Friday.
The Oregon volleyball team opens NCAA Tournament play on Friday against Kennesaw State in Provo, Utah, aiming to advance in a match hosted by Brigham Young.
For all intents and purposes, though, the postseason began for the Ducks a week earlier, in Corvallis, in the regular-season finale against Oregon State. The UO women entered that match having lost their previous four, and five out of the last six. Then, the Beavers won a one-sided second game to even the match.
Collectively, the Ducks' backs were against the wall. To use senior hitter Taylor Agost's term, it was a "fight or flight" moment. Once in the running to host NCAA Tournament play, Oregon suddenly was faced with some tough questions about how this team, and this season, would be defined.
"I think it kind of clicked for us – 'OK, this is tournament time,'" junior Lindsey Vander Weide said. "It just clicked for the whole team. The last three sets, as long as we play like that, we'll be good."
Oregon (17-11) of course went on to beat the Beavers in five games, qualifying for the tournament and Friday's match against the Owls (21-4), champions from the Atlantic Sun. They enter the postseason on an upswing, after ending the losing streak with a rivalry win in Corvallis, and in dramatic fashion at that.
"The Oregon State match was the hardest we've fought since Nebraska," Ulmer said, referencing Oregon's season-opening win over the then-No. 5 Cornhuskers. "We were going for balls we haven't even been going for – and we were getting them, and winning the points. So it was a lot of really great things for us, and I'm hoping they carry over."
The Ducks are back in the tournament for the seventh year in a row, extending that streak in their first season since UImer was promoted. Now, they hope to put that experience to use, and make the extended postseason run many expected, until Oregon's late-season slump.
Ulmer called the Ducks' tournament seeding "a great draw," based on the ease of travel – the team caught a direct flight from Eugene to Salt Lake City on Wednesday. Now Oregon must take advantage of it, against a scrappy, defensive-minded Kennesaw State team Ulmer said reminds him of the Beavers.
"I felt like, in video a lot, I kept saying, 'Similar to what we did last week,'" Ulmer said. "And we know how tough that match was, so we're expecting a similar type match."
Nobody played a bigger part in the revolve Oregon showed in Corvallis that Vander Weide, the versatile junior whose passing out of the back row is critical to the Ducks' success. Challenged to step up by Ulmer after two games last Friday, Vander Weide said she thought to herself, "OK, I can let myself down, but I cannot let down the people around me."
Outside hitter Taylor Agost, meanwhile, is staring down the end of a career, after a remarkable final regular season in which she led the Ducks with 2.98 kills per set.
"It's pretty crazy knowing it's coming down to the end," Agost said. "I try not to focus too much on that, but just really think about all the work I've put in, and the experience I have, and just going as hard as I can."
Agost is now preparing to play in her fourth NCAA Tournament, when the Ducks face Kennesaw State on Friday at 3 p.m. PT. After losing in the first round two years ago, and winning once last season, Oregon wants to take yet another step this time out, and keep playing beyond this weekend.
"We've been there; we know what it's like," Ulmer said. "Not having the unknowns, because we've been there, is a big plus for us. And then we know what to expect. We know what the level's going to be like – we know everything's going to be very difficult, and we're going to have to earn every point. Nothing's going to be given to you, which our conference helps set us up for. So I think we'll be prepared, from a mindset standpoint."
