No. 20 Arizona Volleyball (18-8, 7-7) prepare for another tough, Pac-12 road trip with Colorado and Utah on deck for the Wildcats.
We’re quickly approaching the seasons end, but the now 20th ranked Arizona Volleyball team looks to finish out the year strong, with another tough road trip ahead of them.
So far 2018 has been a rather successful one for the Cats. Initially starting the season 12-1, Arizona has since ran into a difficult and competitive Pac-12 Conference.
Arizona Wildcats
Since then, Arizona has gone just 6-7, facing teams like then No. 2 ranked Stanford, No. 15 ranked Washington, No. 22 ranked Washington State, No. 20 UCLA and No. 15 USC. That’s quite the daunting schedule, nonetheless, Arizona stayed competitive in all those matches.
Luckily, the schedule eases up a little bit. Ahead of Arizona is, Utah and Colorado, two teams the Wildcats defeated earlier in the year in Tucson.
This road trip comes after the Wildcats came back from the Pacific Northwest to take on Washington State and Washington. Arizona came away victorious last Friday, against the then No. 18 ranked Washington State Cougars.
The Wildcats and Cougars exchanged wins in the first four matches, before coming down to a crucial and decisive fifth match. Arizona jumped out to an early 8-3 lead, before ultimately cruising to a 15-12 set victory and overall match victory.
Sunday wouldn’t quite produce the results Arizona was looking for. Coming in against Washington, the Wildcats would lead early, picking up the first set victory, but ultimately lost the three subsequent matches, dropping the overall match 3-1 to the Huskies.
Now with six matches to go on the year, the Wildcats are just looking to finish strong and return to the postseason for the first time since 2016. If they hope to do so, they are still going to need solid contributions from Kendra Dahlke, Paige Whipple, Devyn Cross, Katie Smoot and Julia Patterson among others.
Arizona is in a great position to have their best season since 2014, when they finished 24-10 on the season. Left on the Wildcats’ schedule for 2018 is; Utah (13-12, 5-9), Colorado (14-11, 6-8), USC (18-7, 10-4), UCLA (12-9, 7-7), Cal (13-12, 5-9) and ASU (13-13, 4-10).
While nothing is guaranteed, the Wildcats at least have a promising schedule ahead of them. It will be up to them how they finish.
At Zona Zealots, we are excited to see the team climb the Top 25 rankings, and hope they continue to use that as motivation to get better and compete. Bear Down, Arizona!