After a week of practice, the UH volleyball team is anxious to get the bad taste of losing out of its mouth tonight at Tulsa.
The Cougars (8-7, 3-1 C-USA) will then go against Southern Methodist University on Sunday in Dallas.
Houston and Tulsa (14-5, 2-2 C-USA) played each other twice last season – each team winning on its home floor.
If last year was any indication of things to come, the Cougars will have their work cut out for them.
Tulsa is 5-0 this season at Reynolds Center in Tulsa.
Houston head coach Bill Walton hopes that his young team can take past experiences from this season and turn them into positives on the road.
"We haven’t been comfortable on the road all season," Walton said. "We play a lot of teams close, but come up short. If we have minimal errors, we’ll be fine."
The Cougars will once again be without freshman sensation and middle blocker Lucy Charuk. Charuk has been sidelined with a foot injury since Sept. 23.
Other freshmen, such as middle blocker Malia Vavao, will step up in her absence.
"I’m going to try and play my best to help the team," Vavao said. "We’re going up there to get a win. We have to play hard and communicate to beat a good home team like Tulsa."
Outside hitters Justine Farmer, a junior, and sophomore Ashley Calhoun played big roles in the two matches last season against Tulsa. Farmer averaged 18 kills and 17 digs while Calhoun played stellar defense averaging nearly 20 digs in both contests.
Calhoun knows that her team will have to be on its toes in order to beat the Golden Hurricane.
"They have a good defense, so we’re going to have to spread the ball around and be ready to execute the offense," Calhoun said. "We definitely have to show what we want in conference this year, and this is a chance for us to do it."
Senior middle hitter Fabiola Nepomuceno and freshman outside hitter Emma Ridley will power Tulsa.
Ridley and Nepomuceno led the Golden Hurricane with 18 and 12 kills, respectively, in its last match, sweeping Texas-El Paso.
Nepomuceno averaged nine kills in the two matches against the Cougars last season.
UH will travel south to Dallas Sunday to take on a reeling SMU squad.
After winning its first six matches of the season, the Mustangs (11-7, 1-3 C-USA) have lost four of their last five.
This past week has been reserved for rest and practice for UH because it saw no game play since Rice on Sept. 27 .
The team should be ready to go Friday night, but Coach Walton hopes the long layover hasn’t hurt his team’s rhythm.
"I thought the week off would be good, but we looked sluggish at practice on Monday and Tuesday," Walton said. "The break seemed to break our regimen. We’ll really find out though, this weekend. We’re going to have to execute on the road. Once we do that we’ll be OK."
