The Sun Devils will travel to Berkeley to face longtime rival California this weekend.
Head coach Todd Clapper draws similarities between his team and Cal.
“They've got a similar storyline to us,” Clapper said. “They had been in the top four, but you know, watching video there have been games where they are really sharp and other games where they are not quite as sharp. They have really really good players, and they are going to be up for this game. It's Pac-12 Networks, it's at their home pool.”
After their 11-5 loss against UCLA, Clapper saw a few little things that needed to be tweaked.
“We really worked on a few things we weren't doing shot blocking-wise, that was a point of emphasis at the beginning of this week, so we are still working on that,” Clapper said. “I felt like UCLA was pretty good. The game plan was good. They stuck to it. We looked pretty good for a lot of parts of that game, just some little mistakes.”
Cal is also coming off a heartbreaking 6-5 loss against USC from the previous weekend. Cal also fell to UCLA 10-3 back at the beginning of March.
After a six-game home stretch, the Sun Devils once again find themselves on the road, but they welcome the opportunity to travel again.
“We were here for a few weeks, which was really nice,” Clapper said. “Now, we are fresh and excited to go on the road. Its nice to be home but we are looking forward to being on the road again.”
The team is practicing new techniques and strategies to prepare for Cal.
“It’s hard at the beginning of practice, there is a lot of yelling and direction and everything, and people not knowing and not looking at what they are supposed to be looking at,” Clapper said. “Sometimes from watching video you have one plan, and then as you are seeing things in practice you have a different plan, because it looks different in person than it does on paper. So sometimes at the end of practice I want to try something. And we tried it. It looked really good. It did exactly what we wanted it to do, so everybody was pretty excited about that.”
Reach the reporter at mtsteine@asu.edu or follow @MarcTSteiner on Twitter
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