Another weekend and the losses mount. After hobbling to 4-2 during what was arguably the easiest part of their season schedule, the Washington University Bears struggled again— suffering three definitive losses on their four-game California road-trip.
On Friday, the Bears split their matches, losing in four sets to University of La Verne (25-20, 19-25, 22-25, 19-25) before salvaging the day with a win against University of California, Santa Cruz (16-25, 26-24, 25-21, 25-21), also in four. There was no such redemption the next day. On Saturday, the Bears we swept by both No. 20 University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (19-25, 23-25, 15-25) and No. 4 Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) (25-17, 25-20, 25-18), marking the first time Wash. U. has lost 3-0 in consecutive games since the 1997 NCAA tournament.
Sami Klein | Student LifeSenior Rexi Sheredy hits the ball in the Bears’ game against DePauw last weekend. The Bears won a majority of their matches this weekend at the CalLu tournament in California.
The Bears entered the weekend hitting .236 as a team, a far cry from the .268 they managed last year. This weekend did little to halt that downward trend. Against CMS, the Bears hit a paltry .124, their lowest single-game percentage since 2009. Even in their lone victory against Santa Cruz, the Bears swung at a .224 clip, over 100 points lower than the .354 they hit when they eliminated the Banana Slugs from the playoffs last season. Even senior middle hitter Caroline Dupont, a model of consistency in 2015, has had her numbers fluctuate early in the season. After hitting under .300 just five times in 37 games last season, she already fallen below .100 twice. Head coach Vanessa Walby noted that at least some of the Bears’ recent struggles could be attributed to ball control.
“All of our attackers are doing a great job, [Dupont] included, of handling whatever set is coming their way,” Walby said. “We are working extremely hard to better our ball control, which will have an immediate impact on the rest of our play.”
Ball control is a team skill, but much of the pressure falls on the Bears’ two setters, sophomore Savannah Zhang and freshman Chloe Stile. In some games, the two split time; in others, they get to direct the offense on their own.
“We are still very much figuring out the setter situation,” Walby said.
Against La Verne, Zhang set a career-high with 39 assists, before splitting time with Stile against Santa Cruz, with 25 to 17 assists, respectively. Against Whitewater, Zhang again saw the majority of touches, but, only a few hours later against CMS, Stile took the lead.
There are flashes of potential. Against La Verne, Dupont looked like her old self, tallying a season high 14 kills and no errors. Against CMS, sophomores Julianne Malek and Ifeoma Ufondo combined for 15 kills and a .419 hitting percentage. The trick will be getting the rest of the offense working at the same time.
With the 1-3 road-trip, the Bears fall to 5-5 on the season, matching their worst 10-game start since 1999. Believe it or not, this year’s squad might actually welcome that comparison. That same 1999 team went 26-4 in their final 30 games and made it all the way to the regional finals.
Such a turnaround in 2016 won’t be easy. In addition to fixing their ball control issues, the Bears have a tough schedule ahead of them. This includes No. 2 Juniata College, No. 17 Elmhurst College and No. 1 California Lutheran University—and that’s just next weekend. Beyond that, they have teams like No. 14 University of Texas at Dallas, No. 8 Wittenberg University and all of conference play.