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Aug. 23, 2008

Coach Kritza's Comments Following Saturday's Scrimmage

NEW ORLEANS - Senior Sara Radosevic and freshman Visnja Djurdjevic combined for 43 kills and 23 digs as the Tulane University volleyball team held a five-game, scripted scrimmage on Saturday evening at Fogelman Arena.

Fourth-year head coach Liz Kritza pitted he team against a stacked squad featuring assistant coaches Sinisa Momic, Meg Henican and Blazen Draguljic, as well as key Green Wave reserves, and the varsity emerged with a 3-2 victory (25-20, 22-25, 25-23, 22-25, 25-19). Radosevic posted 23 kills, 12 digs and six service aces while Djurdjevic contributed 20 kills, 11 digs and an ace in Saturday's session.

"I think it was a very productive day, probably our most productive end-of-preseason scrimmage I have seen yet," Kritza said. "Our goal for today was for our lineups to be tested against different types of teams and play tough competition to be prepared to start the season next Friday.

"With our schedule being as tough as it is - with four teams in the preseason Top 25 - a lot of those teams will have sizable players. We need to learn how to play against different types of teams, especially players that outsize us by three of four inches on the block. For that reason, we had coaches playing today. Both Sinisa and Blazen were playing front row and Meg was playing good defense and stabilizing the passing unit, so the offense was much stronger on that side of the court."

Saturday's scrimmage wrapped up Tulane's preseason camp, and the Green Wave will enjoy a much-deserved day off on Sunday before starting its in-season routine with a single practice on Monday. The team will hold single practice in each of the first three days, travel to Provo, Utah, on Thursday and practice there that night, and open the season against Missouri on Friday in day one of the BYU Molten Classic.

While Kritza hoped to use Saturday's scrimmage as a tune-up for next week's season-opening weekend at BYU, she also wanted to see how her team would respond when facing a team with a marked size advantage. With players shuffling from one side of the court to the other throughout their in-game rotations, Kritza had her team constantly adjusting to create new ways to score and take away scoring opportunities from the practice team.

"We stacked a team against them to see how they would respond, and then we gave them openings," Kritza said. "We gave them opportunities to go at smaller players. We played some players out of position on purpose so they learn how to exploit an opponent's weakness. I let them play through some of these situations to see if they recognized the opponent's weaknesses, and sometimes I matched their strengths up with the opponents' strength to teach them how to play point-for-point.

"In the last couple of games, we put Sinisa out there to swing, gave him the green light to go after it and he was almost an automatic point. Our girls need to learn how to come up with an automatic point on their side to be able to keep up with any team offensively."

Tulane returns all 13 letterwinners from last year's 28-6 squad, including reigning AVCA honorable-mention All-Americans Radosevic, Jenn Miller and Bridget Wells. Miller led all players with 20 digs on Saturday, followed by senior defensive specialists Liz McGehee and Ashley Bernards who had 17 and 13 ups, respectively.

One of the bigger surprises of the 2008 preseason, however, has been the performance of junior Rachel Lindelow, who posted a team-best 67 assists to go along with 14 digs, four aces and a kill in Saturday's scrimmage. A two-year letterwinner who posted 1,471 assists, 378 digs and 50 aces as part of the Wave's two-setter system so far in her career, Lindelow arrived on campus for preseason camp in the best shape of her collegiate career and her effort has not gone unnoticed by the Tulane coaching staff.

"In the offseason, she worked hard to come back and knew that she had to make some strides in her ability to move the ball around the floor." Kritza said of Lindelow. "I think that she was prepared for this preseason."

Another surprise on Saturday was the crowd assembled in Fogelman Arena as several fans showed up catch their first look at the 2008 Tulane team.

"It was exciting today," Kritza said. "It was move-in day, all of the freshmen are here, it is kind of a sign that school is starting and we are getting closer and closer to opening day for us. One thing that I noticed is that this team is really doing a good job of reaching out to the school community and encouraging people to come to our Sept. 1 home opener. There were people who came here tonight just to sort of check out our team. I think there is a kind of buzz this year about our team, and I'm excited about getting things started."

The Green Wave open the season on Aug. 29-30 at the BYU Molten Invitational in Provo, Utah, and will play their first home match on Monday, Sept. 1, against Florida A&M. For season tickets information or tickets to any future Green Wave home athletic event, contact the Ticket Office at (504) 861-WAVE.