Volleyball ties record, then drops first match

The UW-Oshkosh Titans women’s volleyball team dropped their first match of the season to nationally ranked UW-Whitewater in the UW-Whitewater Invitational on Friday evening 25-18, 28-26, 21-25, 28-26.

The loss snapped Oshkosh’s 29-game winning streak, which had tied the school record for longest winning streak. 

Even though the winning streak was a significant school record, Titans head coach Brian Schaefer said it wasn’t something that was weighing on the players minds. 

“I don’t think the girls even know about it honestly,” Schaefer said. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

Perhaps a bigger deal, though, was the loss in the tournament dropped the Titans to second in this week’s American Volleyball Coaches Association Division III women’s volleyball poll, and propelled previous number one ranked Juniata College (Pennsylvania) back to the top ranked position. 

Playing against Whitewater on their home court proved to be a daunting task, and senior Katie Beining said the raucous atmosphere had a major impact on the team.

“The atmosphere was a lot different than what we were used to,” Beining said. “I think a lot of the returners were more used to the atmosphere because we had played there before, but a lot of the freshmen looked scared of all the crowd screaming in their faces.”

Prior to the Whitewater game, the Titans won their first match of the tournament, defeating Central College (Iowa) 25-19, 25-22, 25-18 and salvaged the final two matches of the weekend by beating Coe College (Iowa) 25-6, 25-12, 25-18 and Carroll University 25-14, 30-28, 27-25. 

The Titans record currently stands at 31-1 as they prepare for the Trinity University Invitational tournament this Friday and Saturday in San Antonio.  The Titans play eighth ranked Wittenberg University (Ohio) on Friday and the 18th ranked host team Trinity University on Saturday before an epic showdown against the new Division III number one ranked Juniata College. 

“(The team is) excited to play some good competition,” Schaefer said. “I mean, Whitewater is obviously good and we’ve played four or five other nationally ranked teams, but, you know, we’re excited to play two teams in the top ten and obviously a good team on their home court.”

Beining said the team is looking forward to getting to travel to San Antonio for the tournament.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Beining said. “A lot of our freshmen haven’t been traveling on a plane before with the team, which should be fun to get down to the nice weather. But we just really need to stay focused when we get to the gym because we’re playing all teams that are ranked and we want to come back and be able to regain our number one ranking.”

This tournament will be the Titans final three games of the regular season, before the Titans turn their attention to hosting the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament on Nov. 6-7. 
 

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