Elite Titans Advance to Nationals

For the UW-Oshkosh women's volleyball team, the road to national championship leads them to John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio, site of the NCAA Division III National Championship.

The Titans advanced to their second straight Elite 8 tournament by winning their NCAA Regional tournament over the weekend, defeating St. Norbert College 25-9, 25-8 and 25-11, UW-Eau Claire 25-16, 25-16, 22-25 and 25-23, and the University of St. Thomas 17-25, 25-19, 25-20 and 25-15. 

"Our offense this whole weekend was really, really good," Head coach Brian Schaefer said. "Teams just didn't have an answer for our passing and how good Katelyn (Vara) was setting."

In their first game of the weekend, the Titans made quick work of St. Norbert College, swiftly beating the Green Knights in 45 minutes. 

"I think we were just so pumped up to play our match," senior Katie Beining said. "And I think we stunned St. Norbert."

UW-Oshkosh outscored St. Norbert 75-28 in the three sets and Beining served nine straight points in the third set for the Titans. 

The second match of the weekend presented the Titans with a familiar and dangerous opponent, the UW-Eau Claire Blugolds.  Last Friday evening, in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament, the Blugolds stunned the Titans on their home floor, defeating UW-Oshkosh in five sets.  The loss ended the Titans 30-game home winning streak and prevented the Titans the opportunity of following up their regular season WIAC Title with a WIAC tournament title. 

The Titans showed tremendous fire in their first two sets and won both over the Blugolds, 25-16 and 25-16. 

"We wanted to be really pumped up, because we knew they were going to be extremely pumped up," senior Jacque Ray said. "Because they'd be like, ‘oh, we beat them last week so we could beat them again', but we knew we had to be pumped up and be louder than them."

It appeared the Titans were on their way to a straight set win, having a 20-15 lead in the third set. However, after Eau Claire called a timeout they mounted a rally, finishing the game on a 10-2 run to take the third set and extend the game to a fourth set.

In that fourth set the Blugolds continued to play with the fire they showed at the end of the third set, getting out to a 9-15 lead. Then, faced with the prospect of the match going to a fifth and deciding set, with Eau Claire having all the momentum, the WIAC Player of the Year Ray took the game into her own hands with four kills to help the Titans tie the score at 15.  The Titans grabbed a 17-16 lead after two blocks from Ray, and got out to a 22-18 lead. 

However, the Blugolds closed the gap to one, but after a long volley between the teams, freshman Larissa Krumplitsch came up with a big block to give the Titans a 23-21 lead.  The Titans got the score to 24-23, when Beining finished the match off with a kill to give Oshkosh the win and they advance to the regional finals to face St. Thomas University. 

In the regional championship game, the Titans fell behind to the Tommies after dropping the first set 17-25. 

"They (St. Thomas) played flawless (in the first set)," Schaefer said. "They would be the national champions if they were that good all the time."

In the second set the Titans fought back, and were able to put some distance on the Tommies by getting out to a 20-11 lead, before cruising to a 25-19 win.

From there, the Titans gained firm control of the contest and defeated the Tommies 25-20 and 25-15 to advance to the NCAA Championships. 

"Then (after the first set) we kind of kicked it up, I mean we played really well," Schaefer said. "None of the games were close after that, none of the sets were close."

Throughout the tournament, and the entire season, the Titans have been getting big time plays from some of their unsung hero's on the team, as Schaefer said other teams coaches had been commenting on Beining's play during the tournament and her proficiency with kills. 

Schaefer also mentioned others who have been flying under the radar, such as sophomore Britany Cote and freshman Aleisha Bagin, who have been very important to the teams success this season.

The Titans play Christopher Newport University (Va.) on Thursday at 8 p.m. at the DeCarlo Varisty Center on the campus of John Carroll University. 

Last season the Titans made it to the Elite 8 round of the tournament before losing to Juniata College (Pa.) and are looking to improve on their performance from that game.

"We didn't play well last year (In the Elite 8) and the scores were close so that was a little bit more upsetting because, other people watching us may have been like 'they played pretty good'," Schaefer said. "But I know coaches that had seen us play said, 'Sorry, we know you can play better'."