After an undefeated weekend in St. Louis, Missouri, The University of Alabama’s women’s volleyball team will travel to Charlottesville, Virginia, to compete in the Cavalier Classic. The Crimson Tide will open the tournament against Navy on Friday at 3:30 p.m., with matches against Long Island University at Brooklyn and Virginia to follow on Saturday.
“I think we did really well. It’s the first weekend, so you never know what’s going to happen,” redshirt sophomore Krystal Rivers said of the team’s undefeated opening weekend. “I feel like we were well prepared and used that preparation in the match. We did some great things, we did some not so great things, but in the end we played as a team and that’s what got us through it. That’s the thing I’m most proud of.”
For the upcoming weekend, Rivers’ expectations are simple.
“I’m expecting to win another tournament,” she said. “That’s always the goal, to win all of our matches.”
Rivers was named tournament MVP for her performance in the Marcia E. Hamilton Classic, where she set a stadium record with 32 kills. Though the Crimson Tide won all four matches of the tournament, they played a five-set match against Memphis, eventually winning the match 3-2.
Coach Ed Allen said while the tournament helped to further the team’s goal of winning every match they play, the Memphis match showed that there are errors that need addressing.
“If you look at the five set match we played against Memphis, that had more to do with us than it did about them,” he said. “We committed 62 errors in a match, so that doesn’t really require anyone else to do much of anything. Minimizing errors are important as we move into this week and into conference play, and just continuing to grow as a team.”
Following this weekend, the Crimson Tide will compete in two additional tournaments, hosting one in Tuscaloosa, before beginning conference play against the University of Georgia on Sept. 24.
Allen said these tournaments are key to a successful season, as not only does it condition the athletes, but it allows the team to adjust and finalize lineups before conference play begins.
“Anytime you have to play four matches inside of about 36 hours, you have to be in pretty good shape to pull that off,” he said. “It also allows us to take a look at a lot of kids and figure out exactly what lineup we want to settle in on as we arrive in conference play.”
