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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports volleyball

Hoosier volleyball hits the road for two crucial matches

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In the midst of its toughest stretch of games in the regular season, IU volleyball (12-5, 1-3) is focusing even heavier on the mental, team-oriented aspect of volleyball than the technical aspect as they prepare to travel to No. 3 Nebraska and Iowa over the weekend.

“We worked on really bringing it together, on better talk, on cheering and on energy level,” sophomore right side hitter Jessica Admire said. “We really wanted to pick that up because on top of being the scrappy, underdog team, we have to be vocal and passionate at the same time.”

To Admire, a victory over defending national champions Nebraska in their home arena would prove that the Hoosiers are completely capable of competing and excelling in the Big Ten.

Following a home loss in their last match against Ohio State, the Cornhuskers (12-1, 3-1) dropped from No. 1 to No. 3 in the AVCA rankings and will no doubt be looking for ways to climb back up to the peak.

IU Coach Sherry Dunbar-Kruzan noticed that one of Ohio State’s strengths in the match against Nebraska was their serving. IU leads the Big Ten and sits at 11th in the NCAA in service aces, although the 10-year coach points out that serving has been more of a struggle than usual for her team in recent matches.

To combat this issue, Dunbar-Kruzan implored her team to focus on strings of serving so that they worry about getting three or four solid serves in instead of just one overly aggressive serve. She also placed an emphasis on avoiding rally situations by working on achieving more first ball kills.

“I’ve been really proud of the attitude our kids have kept and the drive they have kept,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “We have to stay positive because as soon as you lose that, you have lost more than anything else.”

Saturday’s away match against Iowa (12-4, 2-2) will be just the first time in the last five matches that the Hoosiers will not be competing against a top-10 team.

This match poses IU’s greatest opportunity as of late to get back into the win column after being defeated in its three most recent heading into the weekend.

In the most recent NCAA volleyball RPI, which ranks teams based upon their wins and losses and their strength of schedule, the Hoosiers occupy the final spot in the top 40, while the Iowa Hawkeyes take the 58th spot.

“If you back down that’s when they jump on you,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “We have to keep our focus on Iowa just being another opponent. If your mentality backs down that is when you get into trouble.”

Dunbar-Kruzan refuses to judge her team’s success over the weekend based purely off of wins and losses.

She recognizes that it will be extremely tough to win on the road this weekend, especially at Nebraska where she expects 10,000 fans.

“At the minimum we want a split,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “As soon as you start saying ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ you start thinking different things in your mind instead of just staying on the details of what you have to do. When you start to lose the process you get in trouble. To get to the split we have to realize how much work it will take.”

The Hoosiers will play Friday in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Saturday in Iowa City, Iowa.

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