Wyoming Cowgirl volleyball has started out the season strong with a 3-0 win in their first tournament and looks to once again find success at the Portland Tournament on Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 in Portland, Oregon.
The team will face Long Island University Brooklyn and University of Portland on the first day of the tournament and will face off against Montana State the second day.
Wyoming is coming off of a successful opening weekend where they won the Rumble in the Rockies tournament hosted in Laramie. The Cowgirls won their first six games of the year sweeping both Oral Roberts and Northern Florida. Wyoming faced a tough test against then No. 15 ranked Colorado but the Cowgirls went on to win 3-2 and complete the upset. Head volleyball coach Chad Callihan was pleased with what he saw in the first tournament.
“I would say it was a pretty good first weekend,” Callihan said. “I have been saying for a while that I think this team something special to it. I thought they did a great job coming out every match and being really engaged and setting the tone for the match. Colorado got their backs against the wall and gave us a challenge for a little while, but it was nice to see us reestablish our selves in that fifth set. We were able to compete and finish with a win.”
For her performance sophomore Jackie McBride was named Mountain West Conference Offensive Player of the week and MVP of the tournament. McBride ended the tournament with 26 kills and a .442 attack percentage. McBride had a helping hand in defeating Colorado by having 14 kills against the nationally ranked team.
“I think she [McBride] is definitely a team leader both verbally and in terms of leading by example,” Callihan said.. “She is not our only competitor, but she is probably our best competitor in terms of bringing it every day. Even in practice she is trying to raise the level of play.”
Callihan knows that they have still plenty to work on. Leading up to this weekend he wants to improve on sending and receiving serves. He would like the Cowgirls to be more comfortable while serving and avoid service errors. When receiving the serves Callihan would like his team to be more efficient in setting up the offense to give themselves a better chance to score quickly.
Wyoming will be back in Laramie on Sept. 7 and 8 when they host the UniWyo invite. Three other teams competing with Wyoming will be Arizona State, Binghamton and Murray State.
