No. 10 ASU volleyball head coach Jason Watson was asked what No. 6 Illinois does so well.
“Everything,” he answered.
“What is their best quality?” was the follow-up.
“Everything,” he repeated. “They do everything well.”
ASU’s match on Saturday night comes against a powerhouse. It’s the first time ASU will have hosted a top-10 team while being ranked in the top-10 since 1985.
As difficult as the game will be, the anticipation will be just as tough. Junior outside hitter Cassidy Pickrell said ASU has to worry about immediate tasks at hand before looking at Illinois.
“The first game we have to worry about is UNLV,” she said. “Focus on them first and win there, and then focus on Texas Southern, win there, and then really focus on Illinois.”
The 6-3 Rebels have played well in recent years; they went 26-7 last season but couldn’t sneak into the NCAA tournament. They haven’t had a losing season since 2011-12.
The Rebels success has in large part been due to redshirt junior middle blocker Bree Hammel. She marked her name in UNLV’s record book.
In her career, her hitting percentage of .294 is second. She also ranks second in single-season total blocks and assisted blocks, with 174 and 149, respectively.
Watson said the UNLV middles hit fast off one foot, and do it better than most other schools.
“They hit this slide,” Watson said. “Both of (the middles) are doing it really well and with this great deal of range.”
On Tuesday, Watson said his team doesn’t practice defending that play often because ASU doesn’t run it with the 6-2 offense. He said practice time will be devoted to the middles running it for the sake of the defenders.
Hammel has 104 kills on the season. She leads the teams in hitting, boasting a .342 percentage.
After UNLV, the Sun Devils will play against Texas Southern. Watson seemed like he wasn’t too concerned about the 1-6 school.
On Tuesday, he said he was finishing his scouting efforts of UNLV, then he would go look at Illinois. His typical stigma is a game-by-game approach.
There’s a possibility of this match being a trap game. It’s the definition of one: ASU will be hours away from a matchup of two top-ten teams, and may be overlooking a struggling Texas team.
Junior outside hitter Cassidy Pickrell, who hails from Texas, said she doesn’t know about the school.
She said she wasn’t looking at Texas schools for recruitment after graduating high school; she wanted to get to the West Coast. While transferring, she said she put more thought into going back home but Texas Southern wasn’t on her list.
Once the afternoon game is over, ASU will have a couple hours to look ahead to Illinois. Currently 7-1, Illinois’ sole loss comes against No. 8 Stanford.
Watson said Illinois’ outsides hit the ball with power. Outside hitters junior Michelle Strizak and redshirt senior Jocelynn Birks lead Illinois in kills, combining for 189.
Last year, Birks led the team in kills in 527. The next two leaders graduated; Strizak’s emergence has helped the team recover from the loss. After playing in just 36 sets last year, she has more kills in eight games this year than all of last 2014.
It’ll test the depth of ASU’s back row. The middles have been playing phenomenal defense at the net, but ASU’s back struggled in the first half of the Gonzaga match on Sunday before making adjustments.
“We really need to pick up our defensive intensity,” Harker said. “We’re kind of like the sweepers, whatever (the blockers) touch, we need to go and sweep up the floor.”
Illinois has four middles; two are 6’3 and two are 6’4. PrepVolleyball.com ranked freshman setter Jordyn Poulter as the No. 3 high school senior in last year’s recruitment, and Poulter has taken over the starting spot.
Watson said the Illinois match will show him how much work ASU has before it can be considered one of the top teams in the country.
“It gives us a really good barometer of where we’re at nationally,” he said. “I think we have an enormous amount of work left to do in some areas and I think this matchup gives us an idea of (if we’re) in the right forest.”
Parking Notes:
Parking structures will be closed on Friday. Lot 59 will be open.
Veteran's Way will be closed to vehicles at 2 p.m.
Related Links:
ASU volleyball improves to 8-0 on season as head coach Jason Watson defeats former boss
ASU volleyball senior middle blockers Mercedes Binns and Whitney Follette rank among top in Pac-12
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