Final exams are next week, but the CSU volleyball team will get an early test of the progress it has made this spring tonight, when the Rams take on a top Chinese professional team in an exhibition match at Moby Arena.
Tianjin Bridgestone won its fifth consecutive championship in China's provincial league two weeks ago before embarking on its U.S. tour. Tianjin, missing several players who currently are training with China's national team, lost in five sets apiece at Illinois and Nebraska, both top-10 teams at the end of last season, and rolled to wins in all four sets it played at Creighton and in all five sets at Kansas State. Nebraska, in fact, needed a 6-0 run at the end of the final set Saturday to escape with a 25-19, 25-18, 33-35, 25-27, 16-14 win.
"This match is almost a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Colorado State University junior Dana Cranston said Monday. "Not many college teams around the country get this opportunity."
CSU is coming off a 26-5 season that included its eighth Mountain West Conference title in the league's 12 seasons, a 16th consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament and a No. 16 ranking in the American Volleyball Coaches Association's end-of-season poll.
But three key players on that team, left-side hitters Danielle Minch and Jacque Davisson and libero Audrey Hemmings, were seniors and a fourth, setter Evan Sanders, transferred to Washington for her senior season. So coach Tom Hilbert has been experimenting with a number of changes this spring, including moving right-side hitters Cranston and senior Katelyn Steffan to the left, developing new starters at right-side hitter and libero, and determining which of two redshirt freshmen — Deedra Foss or Katie Rutherford — will take over at setter.
Foss, Hilbert said, will get the nod as the starter tonight. Only middle blockers Megan Plourde, an all-conference selection the past two years, and Brieon Paige, both juniors, are returning next fall in the same positions they played last season.
"I feel like we still have a long way to go, but we’ve improved a lot since March, and we’re going to put a lineup out on the court that we feel is a good one and go from there.”
Good, he knows, might not be good enough.
Tianjin Bridgestone, he said, handles the ball extremely well, plays at an unusually fast tempo and runs a variety of offensive attacks behind the setter that the Rams have never before seen.
"Because they’re ballhandling and setting is so good, everything is extremely precise,” Hilbert said.
Cranston, who has some international experience playing for Canadian national teams, expects the Chinese team to serve and hit the ball harder than the Rams are accustomed to, and Hilbert said Tianjin Bridgestone isn’t likely to make many errors. And points the Rams get, he said, will have to be earned.
Win or lose, Cranston said this match should provide a good gauge of where the Rams are and what they still must accomplish in order to move up in the national rankings next fall and advance deeper into the NCAA Tournament.
"It’s very exciting, and it’s going to be a huge challenge for us,” Steffan said. “But I think we’re ready for it. We’ve overcome a lot of challenges, a lot of battles this spring, so this will just kind of top it off.
"I think we’ve progressively gotten better through the spring. Now, this will be kind of an actual finale for it.”
