The Virginia volleyball team is looking to build off two straight victories when it hosts the four-team Fairfield Inn Jefferson Cup Volleyball tournament tonight. Games will be played tonight and tomorrow at University Hall.
The Cavaliers (2-2) are following up a 3-1 comeback victory over James Madison on Tuesday, and a win over Texas-Pan American at the Time Warner Cable Texas Invitational last Saturday.
They will open play at the Jefferson Cup against the College of Charleston at 7 p.m. They also will face William & Mary and Georgetown tomorrow.
"We're going into the Jefferson Cup expecting to win it," Virginia Coach Melissa Shelton said. "There will be three other really tough teams. We have our work cut out for us."
William & Mary, the College of Charleston and Georgetown all played in the NCAA tournament last year.
Virginia has been led this season by sophomore setter Lily Phillips. Phillips was named to the All-Tournament team in the Time Warner Cable Texas Invitational, and is averaging a robust 8.92 assists per game.
She also has recorded double-doubles in her last two matches, compiling 74 assists and 25 digs in seven games. She will be crucial to Virginia performance, but a win will have to be a team effort, sophomore outside hitter Celeste Laborde said.
"I think that all of our hitters need to keep hitting in the positives," she added. "Lily is doing a great job setting, so we just got to keep the serving errors down and keep playing our game."
Laborde was instrumental in the win over JMU, recording 11 kills and two big service aces to close out the Dukes. Also playing a key role for the Cavaliers is senior middle Simona Kuipers, who leads the team in blocks with 1.4 per game.
The competition at the Jefferson Cup will be tough, but not as tough as last year, when perennial powerhouses Stanford and Wisconsin came to town.
Georgetown opened the season 1-2 at the Coca-Cola/Michigan State University Volleyball Classic, beating Oakland but falling in straight games to 15th-ranked Michigan State and South Carolina.
William & Mary started 2-2, finishing second in the four-team William & Mary Invitational. The Tribe beat Furhman and Radford but fell to Fresno State and East Carolina.
The College of Charleston (1-2) likewise finished second in a tournament they hosted, losing to Boston College in straight games for the first time in two seasons. Nevertheless, the Cougars were picked to repeat as Southern Conference champions this season.
"The expectations are different this year, because last year we had Stanford as our first match and Wisconsin," Phillips said. "The teams this weekend will not be as strong as we saw last year, and it's important that we play as strong as we did [against JMU]. We'll see teams a lot more like us."
With the momentum of a winning streak and a leg up on the competition, the Cavaliers' upbeat predictions are not unreasonable, and the Jefferson Cup may stay in Charlottesville.
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