Women's Volleyball Match of the Week preview: Arizona at Washington

Who: No. 14 Arizona at No. 6 Washington

When: Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. PT on Pac-12 Networks with Anne Marie Anderson and Holly McPeak on the call.

For the third straight week, the Pac-12 Networks' Women's Volleyball Match of the Week features two top-15 programs, as the Dawgs welcome the 'Cats to Montlake.

The Story So Far: No. 14 Arizona (12-4, 2-2 Pac-12)

Usually when you lose to a ranked team, you fall in the polls. But when you’re Arizona and the teams you lose to are current No. 5 Arizona State and No. 7 Stanford, you’ve earned the right to stay at No. 14 despite losses in consecutive weeks. This is especially the case considering the way the Wildcats have stood up to the tough competition. In last week’s Match of the Week, Arizona commanded the first and third sets and led 23-22 in the fourth set and 13-12 in the fifth before eventually falling in five to Stanford, dropping the fifth set 17-15. Arizona has come close in its matches with top-caliber opponents, earlier taking then-No. 2 Texas to five sets, but is still searching for that marquee victory. Sweeping a ranked Oregon squad was impressive and all, but beating national powerhouse Washington would really be a feather in Dave Rubio’s cap this season.

The Wildcats will have plenty of chances to notch wins over brand-name opponents over the course of Pac-12 play, but especially so on their current four-match road swing that starts Wednesday in Seattle and ends Oct. 18 in Los Angeles. The combined record of the four teams Arizona will play in the next two weeks – Washington, Washington State, UCLA and USC – is 52-8. Oh, life in the Pac-12.

The Story So Far: No. 6 Washington (13-1, 3-1 Pac-12)

There were five undefeated teams left in the nation heading into last week’s action. Three of them were in the Pac-12. Washington was one of them...until Sunday. Despite suffering their first loss of the season, the Dawgs are arguably coming off their most impressive weekend of 2015. The Huskies rolled through the non-conference portion of their schedule, dropping just one set not counting the exhibition against Team Canada, but did not face a ranked opponent and played just two teams from major conferences. The road got a tad rockier once Pac-12 play began, but first-year head coach Keegan Cook was able to guide the Huskies to a five-set victory in Pullman before sweeping Colorado and embarking on the trek to Los Angeles. There, the Huskies resoundingly swept No. 11 UCLA despite losing their best attacker to a foot injury and gave now-No. 1 USC all it could handle in a four-set defeat, dropping the fourth set 33-31. The Huskies showed a ton of resolve in the defeat.

While the Dawgs acquitted themselves well in their first true tests of the season, the schedule doesn’t ease up at all. The Huskies must play three ranked teams on their current four-game homestand that begins Wednesday night and then hit the road for the Bay Area schools, one of which (Stanford) is a top-10 team.

Three Players to Watch: Arizona

1. #10 Kalei Mau (Outside Hitter, Junior) – You’d think 40-kill weeks would be tough to duplicate, but not when you’re Kalei Mau. After ripping off 42 kills combined against Arizona State and Oregon, Mau went for another 42 combined kills against the Bay Area schools. While it took two more sets last week to get those kills, Mau is without a doubt still the workhorse of the Arizona attack, taking 300 more attacks than the second most-frequent hitter on the team and 32 percent of all available attacks on the season. And that’s the thing – you know it’s gonna be Mau on the attack, and she will still make you pay.
2. #18 McKenzie Jacobson (Middle Blocker, Redshirt Sophomore) – The Wildcats aren’t exactly known for their blocking this year, ranking ninth in the Pac-12 in blocks per set, but Jacobson is coming off a stout week against the Bay Area schools, amassing 12 blocks over the two matches and putting together a 12-kill, .550-efficiency, five-block performance in the four-set triumph over Cal.
3. #15 Mackenzie Kleespies (Libero/Defensive Specialist, Junior) – We mentioned in the last Match of the Week preview how Arizona has eight listed liberos/defensive specialists on their roster, so it’s time to give one of them some love. Kleespies is one of five Wildcats to average at least 2.40 digs per set and paced the ‘Cats with 17 digs against Cal. Her 3.16 digs per set mark is second on the team.

Three Players to Watch: Washington

1. #8 Cassie Strickland (Libero, Senior) – It doesn’t take long when watching No. 8 to see why she is the reigning Pac-12 Libero of the Year. Sacrificing her body to keep points alive, Strickland has been known to run into bleachers to keep rallies going, or at least that’s what former UW volleyball stud Krista Vansant said when joining the Pac-12 Networks crew for a segment during Washington-USC. Did I mention that she was named the best libero in the conference in her first collegiate season at the position? An outside hitter her first two years on Montlake, Strickland has equaled her banner 2014 pace of 3.96 digs per set so far in the 2015 season.
2. #18 Destiny Julye (Outside Hitter, Freshman) – There’s no official word on whether or not top attacking threat Courtney Schwan will be able to return this week from the foot injury she suffered against UCLA, so if Schwan can’t go, this frosh will be a key component of the attack. Filling in for the .403-hitting Schwan last weekend, Julye produced two set-winning kills at UCLA and built off that performance with a career-high 15 kills in the four-set loss to USC, racking up points at the end of the second set to help boost Washington to its only set victory of the match.
3. #10 Lianna Sybeldon (Middle Blocker, Senior) – Yeah, middle blockers generally have the highest hitting percentages on the team, but usually those percentages aren’t in the .450 range – Sybeldon’s .453 mark tops the league. She doesn’t have a small sample size either, averaging 2.28 kills per set (fourth on the team, but only 0.11 kills per set away from being second on the team). She is also sixth in the conference with 1.33 blocks per set.

Three Notes to Know:

1. Tougher to hit in conference play: The Huskies rolled through the non-conference slate, not only winning 30 of 32 sets and all 10 matches, but hitting at least .300 in all 10 matches. In conference play, the Dawgs have come back to Earth and hit below .300 in each of their four league contests. That said, Washington still leads the Pac-12 with a team hitting percentage of .323 (USC is second at .304).
2. Tough stretch for the 'Cats, continued: So Arizona has had a rough conference slate thus far, but the tough opponents didn’t start with Arizona State. Stretching back to Sept. 12 when the ‘Cats played THE Ohio State University, Arizona is in the fifth week of a six-week stretch in which it will face at least one top-nine opponent in the current AVCA top 25 each week.
3. Streaky in Seattle: Wins in this series appear to come in waves when the Dawgs and ‘Cats play in Seattle. The Huskies have won 11 straight at home against Arizona, which directly follows a six-match win streak Arizona had at Washington. So either Washington extends the streak to 12 or Arizona starts a 16-match win streak in Seattle Wednesday night; there’s no in-between.