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| FILE PHOTO The Wolverines will have setter Linnea Mendoza for this weekend's matches with North Carolina and Duke, but they will be without outside hitter Karen Chase. |
After missing last weekend's LSU Tiger Invitational, Chase had a bone scan Tuesday, which came up negative.
Michigan coach Greg Giovanazzi said that Chase has a disc problem and will likely not return to practice until next Tuesday.
"That doesn't make her very probable for even next weekend," Giovanazzi said. "So maybe we'll enter the Big Ten season without her, the first weekend."
For now, though, the Wolverines (5-4) have North Carolina on their minds, and they're working on setting their lineup.
"We know that we'll start Sarah Behnke outside," Giovanazzi said. "We'll use Anne Poglits a lot more this weekend. Anne, every weekend, is getting better. So, we're going to use her front row and Jane Stevens back row."
Looking at the Wolverines' two weekend opponents, the teams are around the same level. The differences lie in their areas of expertise.
"I think that we're going to find these two teams to be extraordinarily even, maybe with different strengths," Giovanazzi said. "I think North Carolina will be a little bit more like us, as far as some good attacking, mainly running people on the slide.
"I think we'll look at Duke and see them as a good ball control team that we're going to have to have a lot of patience against, and maybe overwhelm them with a more powerful game."
The Wolverines would like to return home with two victories, but winning is not Michigan's only concern.
The Big Ten season begins Sept. 26 at Minnesota, with another match at Iowa the following day. This weekend's back-to-back matches will serve as a practice run.
"It's very unusual for me, but I'm not very focused on the other two teams this weekend, because we're going in without Karen, and because our focus is to get two good nights in this weekend," Giovanazzi said.
"One of the reasons we enlisted for this tournament is to prepare for what's a normal Big Ten weekend. It's exactly like this weekend. Two good matches. Back-to-back nights."
Still of concern to the Wolverines is their inability to come through in close matches.
It has been a focus of practice this week, something that the team has worked on by practicing game situations and by talking about the problem.
"We haven't been doing much technical work," Giovanazzi said. "We've been doing a lot of work on sticking with one lineup and seeing whether or not the people mesh and then also giving people an opportunity to do a little more concentrated work on game situations."
Part of the problem is a confidence issue, although Giovanazzi said it should not be a problem.
"This is a team that's 5-4," Giovanazzi said. "I don't think they should have a confidence crisis. I think they should be holding their heads pretty high and looking at finishing the preseason at 7-4."
09-19-97
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