Team to face strong competition in Ohio

The IU volleyball team is just about two weeks away from opening Big Ten play, but IU coach Sherry Dunbar insisted the conference schedule isn’t the team’s current focus.

“We’re really one day at a time,” Dunbar said.

The Hoosiers (5-2) will travel to Athens, Ohio for the Hampton Inn Invitational at Ohio University this weekend.

“We’re really all about practice right now because we have so many things ... to improve on,” Dunbar said.

IU will play four matches in the tournament. Its first two contests will take place at 10 a.m. Friday against Delaware and 7 p.m. against host Ohio.

The Hoosiers will play their final two matches Saturday at 10 a.m. against Eastern Kentucky and 5 p.m. against Missouri State.

Ohio has received consideration in the coaches’ poll, and Dunbar said she expects the Bobcats (5-1) and Missouri State to be especially tough opponents.

“Ohio is going to be a huge challenge,” Dunbar said. “Missouri State’s got a great program. We lost to them last year.”

But two teams won’t deter IU from its one-day-at-a-time approach, Dunbar said.

“I think everybody’s a challenge for us right now,” Dunbar said. “We’re a young team, and we will play really inconsistent. We need to work on our consistency, so having four matches this weekend will be great for us because we need more game experience.”

Junior middle blocker and right-side hitter Taylor Wittmer, who registered 29 total kills and 25 total blocks in last weekend’s IU adidas Classic, agreed that the team isn’t getting ahead of itself.

“Obviously, we’re thinking about Big Ten all the time because that’s our conference and we want to beat all the teams there, but as far as right now, we’re one match at a time because these matches right now will end up counting for the NCAA (tournament),” Wittmer said.