Sweet Sixteen Arrives For Ducks

MINNEAPOLIS — At every turn, Matt Ulmer has made decisions with one goal in mind.

All the lineup tinkering, every position change, each conservative approach to injury rehabilitation during the fall took place with winter in mind. The Oregon volleyball team wanted to peak in December, not September, Ulmer reiterated consistently over the past four months.

Well, here we are. It's December, and the Ducks are still playing. And they'll need to be peaking to stay alive past Friday, when they play an NCAA regional match against No. 2 Minnesota (1:30 p.m. PT, ESPN3).

"I think everyone feels pretty good for this time of year," Ulmer said Thursday at a pre-match press conference. "Our jumps are as high as they've ever been, and our spirits are as high as they've ever been. … So I think we're in position to play our best volleyball down the stretch."

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The 15th-seeded Ducks (22-10) advanced to this Sweet Sixteen match after winning twice at home last week. Oregon beat New Mexico State and Baylor to extend its season, and extend the careers of four seniors who aren't ready to be done as Ducks.

By reaching the second weekend of this year's NCAA Tournament, Lindsey Vander Weide, Sumeet Gill, Lauren Page and August Raskie advanced past the first weekend for the first time in their careers. A concern, then, might be that they're just happy to have finally reached this stage.

Think again, Vander Weide said.

"I don't want it to end yet," Oregon's senior all-America candidate said. "I think we've worked really hard to get here — and we've worked really hard to get to continue."

The Ducks are in the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 2014. That was Ulmer's first season as a UO assistant, and he has Oregon back in the second weekend in his second season as head coach.

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Coincidentally, the Ducks played their Sweet Sixteen match in 2014 on the same court where they'll play Friday — Maturi Pavilion, home court of the Golden Gophers. That was back when postseason sites were pre-determined rather than hosted by participating schools, and the Ducks faced North Carolina in a regional that didn't include Minnesota.

"This," Ulmer said, "is going to be a very different experience."

Friday's match features a rare matchup of teams happy to be playing on one of the participants' home court. The Gophers are thrilled to be hosting in the gym where they've gone a perfect 16-0 so far this season. And Oregon has been road warriors all year, with a win over then-No. 1 Minnesota in a tournament hosted by Stanford in September, then going 8-2 away from home in Pac-12 play.

"Not a lot of teams would see this as an advantage," UO junior Ronika Stone said. "But we do."

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At home, Stone said, the Ducks sometimes find themselves in the dreaded position of playing not to lose. On the road, they're playing to win. They like nothing more than raising the ire of a visiting crowd — and then quieting it just as quick.

"You get a big kill, and there's silence," Stone said. "I love that."

The Golden Gophers are more than happy to oblige Oregon's self-image as road warriors.

"It's just such a huge advantage getting to play in front of our home crowd," Minnesota freshman libero CC McGraw said at Thursday's press conference. "They just have so much energy and fire. It's a huge advantage for us."

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Like so many other decisions he made earlier this year, Ulmer scheduled Oregon's nonconference matches with the postseason in mind. The Ducks played at Nebraska and Hawai'i this season, two of the most well-regarded homecourt atmospheres in the country. Next he scheduled a match at Penn State, and in 2021 the Ducks will be back in Minneapolis to face the Gophers.

"The idea of doing that is, we were hoping we'd have these moments," Ulmer said. "That we'd go into someone's homecourt that's crazy, loud raucous — and we'd be able to shine. Hopefully that preparation pays off."