TicketsOct. 26, 2011
By Shawn Sell
The rivalry is one of the oldest in UC volleyball annals, but until Tuesday night (Oct. 25th), it had sat idle for nearly a decade. Like the Bearcats' meetings in all sports with crosstown rival Xavier, this one was for City of Cincinnati bragging rights and the renewal of the UC-XU volleyball series ended with the Bearcats coming out on top.
UC head coach Reed Sunahara, mentor of the highly-successful Bearcat program, can't put his finger on exactly why the two schools have met only three times since his tenure began in 2000. In 2001 and again in 2002, the squads faced off during Thanksgiving weekend as part of the Conference USA-Atlantic 10 Challenge. The NCAA showed its sense of humor and irony in 2001, pitting the Bearcats and Musketeers in a first round NCAA Tournament match-up just six days following the regular season clash. But then, after the 2002 contest the series between the schools separated by less than 10 miles, went silent.
In the last decade, both teams have found success with UC winning at least 20 matches in all but one season since 2002 (and making five NCAA Tournament appearances) and XU claiming winning records in each campaign. Insert into the equation second-year Xavier head coach Mike Johnson. Like Sunahara a native of Hawaii, Johnson made a call to his fellow Hawaiian to see about starting the crosstown rivalry back-up. Sunahara was happy to accept.
"Mike is a new coach there and we talked and he said what about playing," Sunahara recounts. "I said OK and as luck would have it we had one more date of competition open so we agreed to a home and away (two-year series). Hopefully, we can keep this rivalry going. We are so close that I think it would be a good match because they are good and hopefully we can be too. I think for both of us, it's a good quality match and neither of us has to travel far."
The meeting between the Queen City rivals was a slugfest from the outset with Xavier claiming a hard fought 25-22 first set victory. UC returned the favor, heading into the break even at one on the strength of a 25-23 set two triumph. But after the break, Sunahara's charges looked like a different team, pulling out 25-18 and 25-20 wins to seal the victory. To Sunahara, it was a matter of adjustments and taking better care of the ball.
"I just said we have to make sure we take care of the ball," Sunahara said of his mid-match speech. "The first two sets, I thought we gave them easy points and didn't do a good job of blocking or on defense. They were killing us. I thought we were fortunate to win the second set. I was happier in the third and that we won the match. But we still have a long way to go. We have to do a better job of executing at a higher level and making sure that our blocking is better and our defense is better."
One player in particular was burning the Bearcats early, as Xavier sophomore Sarah Brown scorched the hosts for nine first set kills, one more in the second set and an 11th early in the third. But in the early stages of set three, XU's leading offensive player appeared to suffer an ankle injury, limiting her to only back row play for the balance of the night. Could that have been the difference for UC closing out the win?
"I think so," Sunahara said of the Brown injury being key. "Anytime you have an injury it's not good and I hope she is OK. It might have been what got us over the hump, I really don't know, but it didn't help them."
With the win, UC can claim bragging right on their cross town foes for this year, but one Bearcat says that despite her excitement, she won't be bringing it up to XU anytime soon. Senior Missy Harpenau, a Cincinnatian born and raised, saw many familiar faces in Fifth Third Arena and was excited for the chance to take on the Muskies.
"It's exciting to beat a hometown rival like that with a crowd like this," she says. "You see a lot of familiar faces. When we were scouting earlier, a lot of my teammates had played with girls on the other team. A lot of them are from Cincinnati and I played with a couple of them so it's nice to see them again and to come out with a win is good."
The victory was also another notch in the Bearcats' regular season home court winning streak, the nation's longest active streak, still alive at 46 straight. The streak is beginning to enter uncharted territory as it stands as the 15th-longest such streak in the history of NCAA Volleyball. Despite the accomplishment, don't expect anyone within the UC program to really be giving it much thought. Sunahara for one prefers to stay focused on the goal of a fourth straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
"We just have to win," he says. "Our goal is to win every single match. If we continue to do that, good things will happen. But I haven't really thought about the streak. We haven't talked about it. If we don't win, there is no streak. We have to position ourselves for the NCAA Tournament and that is what we are trying to do. The more we can win, the better our chances are."
"We don't think about it until after the game," Harpenau adds. "It's just not something we bring up before. But it's always good to win at home."
With a win over Xavier on Tuesday night, the UC Volleyball team accomplished a goal of besting its crosstown rival. It was a victory that was nearly a decade in the making.