Women’s volleyball heads to the road

The No. 24 USC Women’s Volleyball team rebounded from their tough start the first weekend of matches. The team won the USC Radisson Classic, improving their overall record to 3-3. The Women of Troy swept No. 23 Kentucky in three sets (25-20, 32-30, 27-25), Northern Iowa State in four sets (25-21, 25-21, 24-26, 25-23) and No. 22 Creighton in five sets (25-27, 25-23, 25-22, 19-25, 15-10).

“I like the fact that we came back and fought,” head coach Mick Haley said.

Along with claiming the tournament crown, USC had three players make the all-tournament team. Freshman outside hitter Khalia Lanier was the tournament’s Most Valuable Player and joined by senior middle blocker Elise Ruddins and senior libero Taylor Whittingham on the all-tournament team.

“You talk about freshmen coming in and making an impact,” Haley said. “And she’s been really, really good.”

Lanier put up 50 kills over the weekend and recorded 38 digs. Lanier has put up four double-doubles in five matches (three consecutively). Against Creighton, she had a season-high of 21 kills, 17 digs and 24.0 points.

“She’s carried a heavy load,” Haley said. “But she’s a good one, no question.”

During practices last week, one of Haley’s goals for the team was to reduce their number of hitting and serving errors. In the Radisson Invitational, they reduced their errors by roughly a third.

“That’s why we felt like we were successful,” Haley said. “But, we need to reduce them a lot more.”

Along with continuing to reduce errors, Haley wants the team to be better at attacking when they’re out of their system, meaning he wants the team to always look for the kill even when they can’t run their set plays. Just because a setter received the first ball or they don’t get the best pass off their opponents’ hit doesn’t mean the point is lost.

“We’re trying to get our hitters to be more kill-oriented off of the high balls,” Haley said. “We don’t like to play slow but sometimes we have to.”

Senior setter Alexa Strange, two-time national champion and All-American with the USC beach volleyball team, decided to leave the team for her final semester at USC.

“I tried to get her to stay but I think she’s focused on getting her degree,” Haley said. “She always plays with a fire, and that’s what we lose from [her leaving].”

As the Women of Troy head out to Houston, it’ll be their first matches away from home.

“That’s probably the first crowd that will be kind of an anti-crowd because we’ve played at home all year,” Haley said. “So we’ll see how we adjust to that.”

Despite playing on the road, Haley’s goals for the team remain basically the same.

“We’d like to come out of there 3-0. Of course that’s important,” Haley said. “We would like to be able to handle the other teams.”

The Women of Troy kick-off the Rice Adidas Invitational against Sam Houston State (4-3) Friday, and Oakland (4-3) and Rice (3-4) on Saturday.