Hoosiers to host tourney this weekend

It's the final preparation before the Big Ten season -- one last test before the big games come to Bloomington. This is the women's volleyball IU Credit Union Tournament.\nThe Hoosiers play host to Mercer University, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and Southern Methodist University this weekend.\nIU faces off first against Chattanooga Friday at 7 p.m. to kick off the tournament. Chattanooga, a team IU coach Katie Weismiller calls "scrappy," is coming into the tournament with a record of 1-7.\nThe Hoosiers continue the weekend when they face Mercer at 12:30 p.m. Saturday. Mercer comes to IU after a successful weekend at home, winning three of its last four games. Mercer, however, will still bring a losing record of 5-6 to Bloomington.\nIU closes out the weekend against Southern Methodist University at 7 p.m. Saturday. SMU has lost its last three games but still holds a record of 7-4 entering the tournament.\nThe Hoosiers (6-3) look to bounce back after going 1-2 last weekend in the Marriott Flyer Invitational in Dayton, Ohio. The team said it feels that good defensive play will help get it back on the winning track.\n"We've been concentrating on defense, serving and passing this week," senior Sara Diehl said.. "We have practiced with a few new lineups, too."\nSophomore Juli Pierce, a defensive specialist, said she thinks a win could help the team's morale.\n"We want to lift everyone's spirit and excitement," Pierce said. "We want to dig everything we can to help the team."\nWeismiller said a simple detail could help out this weekend.\n"We worked a lot this week on serving," she said. "We're definitely getting better from the service line as a team. We were very strong early in the season, but we let up a little this past weekend. We want to get back on track."\nWeismiller continued to talk about another issue that was a little more alarming to her.\n"We had been a very strong blocking team until this past weekend," Weismiller said. "We had very few blocks this weekend, and we need to get back to our game"