By Stephen Mason
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The streak continued Sunday evening when the No. 18 Tennessee women’s volleyball team (20-7) was awarded its fifth consecutive NCAA tournament berth, and the sixth since head coach Eve Rackham Watt took the helm in 2018.
“It has certainly become an expectation of the program, and when we took the job in 2018, the goal was always to get back to the tournament,” Rackham Watt said. “When it becomes that sort of an expectation, it is now about advancing in the tournament and not just being happy to be there.”
After beating the No. 5 seed Florida Gators in a revenge game and losing to the No. 1 seed Kentucky Wildcats in the SEC tournament in Savannah, the team was given a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament. The Lady Vols will travel to Tempe, Arizona, to play the Mountain West champions, Utah State, in the first round on Thursday, hosted by the second-seeded No. 9 Arizona State Sun Devils.
“I am pretty excited, I have never played Utah State, I haven’t ever played at Arizona State,” Rackham Watt said. “That’s what is neat about the tournament, you get to see new opponents.”
The fourth team playing in Tempe this weekend is Coppin State University, which is coming off a win in its second MEAC championship. They will play the Big 12 champions, Arizona State, in the first round on Thursday, and the winner of that match will face the winner of the Tennessee-Utah State matchup on Friday.
The Lady Vols are emerging from a grueling SEC regular season and tournament, and the team feels like it is playing its best volleyball of the year, despite losing to Kentucky in its most recent match.
“We’re playing better for longer stretches. I thought that was going to be the biggest focus when we played Florida and Kentucky in the tournament,” junior setter Caroline Kerr said. “It was like: Can we sustain it for longer? And I thought we did that. No matter the outcome of those games, I believe in this team, and I am excited to go to battle with this group.”
Since the beginning of the season, Rackham Watt has been testing her team’s depth, running 6-2 and 5-1 rotations earlier in the year, and giving many of her players opportunities to test themselves on the court. One player who had to earn her place on the court this year is senior outside hitter Hayden Kubik, who has become a vital component for the Lady Vols’ offense.
In her second year on Rocky Top, Kubik has recorded 378 kills for Tennessee and was drafted by the San Diego Mojo third overall in last week’s Major League Volleyball Draft. Like the rest of the seniors, Kubik is hoping to capitalize on this opportunity.
“I don’t want to leave anything up to chance. I want to leave everything out on the court, everything that I have trained for since I was a little kid,” Kubik said. “This is the end of one chapter of my career, and I don’t want to leave anything up to chance.”
Kubik is just one of many veteran players who have stepped up for the team this year. Senior libero Gulce Guctekin, who transferred from Wisconsin this year, put together two of her best performances at the SEC tournament against Florida and Kentucky, totaling 40 digs in those games. Guctekin also brings lots of postseason experience from her time with the Badgers.
Fifth-year senior and middle blocker Klaudia Pawlik, who missed the first half of the season with an injury, has played a larger role for Tennessee in recent weeks, making her presence felt at the net. The Lady Vols will continue to look to their veterans as they travel across the country to open postseason play.
“I think this year’s team is tough. I think they are resilient, especially since we’ve been so good on the road at times. That is going to be a great strength going to Arizona this weekend,” Kerr said.
Rackham Watt and her coaching staff have hardly looked at a potential matchup against the Sun Devils; instead, they have been locked in on Utah State and the challenges that team brings.
“Utah State is really good. They won a ton of matches in their league. They were tested in their conference tournament, and they responded,” Rackham Watt said. “They run a really fast offense, they’ve got experienced pin players, and they’ve got a really active middle… We’ve played a number of teams with that style this year, so I am excited to see us compete.”
Up to this point in the season, the Lady Vols have shown that they can play with the best teams in the country, taking the Texas Longhorns to five sets in Austin and giving the Kentucky Wildcats a battle in their regular-season match in Lexington, as well as in the postseason match in Savannah. Both the Longhorns and Wildcats are No. 1 seeds in the tournament.
The Lady Vols’ loss to the Missouri Tigers is their only one to a team that did not make the NCAA tournament, and their only blemish on their record. The team is currently ranked 23rd in the RPI ranking and 18th in the latest AVCA poll.
With their veteran squad, the ceiling for the Lady Vols in this year’s tournament is high, and an early upset of Arizona State is entirely possible. The key for the team will be maintaining momentum throughout the entire match. In the SEC tournament, they took the first set from Kentucky, then dropped the next three. Many of their matchups against the top teams have followed this pattern.However, the team believes in themselves and is peaking at the right time. Rackham Watt has put together a squad that has the experience and the talent to make a run in the tournament. Any run will have to start with a complete performance and a win against Utah State in their opening game at 6:30 p.m. EST on Thursday.