Oregon volleyball coach Jim Moore is looking for more after a sour finish ended 2011?s promise

The memory of Oregon?s final volleyball match of 2011 still haunts coach Jim Moore.

A season that started so promising with a victory against No. 1 Penn State in August ended with a stunning loss to unranked Colorado State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament on the first day of December.

?That was as difficult of a loss as I?ve ever had in my career. No question about that. Very disappointed,? Moore said Monday before Oregon?s practice at Matthew Knight Arena. The 20th-ranked Ducks open the 2012 season at 4:30 p.m. Friday against Toledo in the Sports Impact Classic Tournament hosted by No. 24 Ohio State, which Oregon will play Sunday.

In between their 2011 win in State College, Penn., and loss to the Rams in Honolulu, there were moments that seemed to indicate the Ducks were emerging as one of the Pac-12 Conference?s elite teams (wins against eventual national champion UCLA, No. 3 California and No. 5 Stanford) and other moments when they struggled to meet expectations (losses to Utah and Oregon State in the final month of the conference season).

?Last year we showed in spurts that we could be really, really good,? senior libero Haley Jacob said. ?But there were other times where you didn?t think that was the same team out there. We have to find a way to be more consistent.?

Thus, the prevailing theme during offseason workouts and the weeks of fall camp centered around consistency, both in focus and effort.

?It took us as a group a long time to recover (from the loss to Colorado State),? Moore said. ?We?re going to find out whether or not we learned what we needed to learn from that loss and focus on the things we need to focus on. ? We need to pay more attention to detail, we need to work smart, and we have to do what we do better. I hope that?s what we learned.?

Oregon went 21-10 in 2011 and finished sixth in the Pac-12 at 14-8. The Ducks return the majority of their impact players from last season with all-American outside hitter Alaina Bergsma and all-Pac-12 setter Lauren Plum among the six returning starters.

Add to that veteran group a five-member freshman class ranked 14th nationally by PrepVolleyball.com, and the Ducks seem to have a roster built for success, with Moore calling Oregon?s depth the strength of the team right now.

Leading the way is Bergsma, a redshirt senior who was 12th nationally last season with averages of 4.51 kills per set and 5.12 points per set. She?ll be joined on the outside by senior Katherine Fischer and sophomore Liz Brenner. Fischer, who has started all 91 matches of her career, stands sixth all-time for Oregon with 1,067 career points and is also the Ducks? active leader with 900 kills and 82 aces.

Brenner, a multi-sport star who also played basketball and softball for the Ducks last year, was an all-Pac-12 freshman in 2011 after ranking third on the team with 288 kills and 2.96 points per set.

?I?m feeling really fresh,? Brenner said. ?At the end of the year last I was feeling a little run down. But I?ve done what I needed to do over the summer and I?m ready to go.?

Freshman outside hitter Martenne Bettendorf, a prep all-American and the 2011 OSAA Class 6A player of the year from Central Catholic, ?is going to have an impact in that group. She?s going to play,? Moore said. ?Martenne hits the ball over people. She can hit the ball over the block. Liz and Kat don?t necessarily have that ability.?

Two other outside hitters, freshman Maddie Magee and senior Weber State transfer Bethany Bair ? wife of Oregon football player Stetzon Bair ? fill out the rotation.

Also up front, junior middle blocker Ariana Williams has quickly and clearly separated herself from freshmen Clelia DeFelice and Canace Finley.

?Ariana has stepped up tremendously,? Moore said. ?If you go back to the end of spring, Ari was better and for sure she was the better of the three, but now, she is light years better. She?s really stepped up.?

Moore had the same to say about Jacob, who was facing a challenge from highly regarded freshman Tatum Norton and senior Kellie Kawasaki.

?Haley has shown in the first two weeks that she?s way above the rest,? Moore said. ?Haley has figured out how to do this. She?s, at times, the most impactful player we have on the court. She?s outstanding.?

Plum, who was 10th nationally last season with an average of 11.67 assists per set, returns as one of the top setters in the Pac-12.

?We have the depth, now we have to execute and consistently do the things we know we?re capable of doing, and not worry about the outcome and not look to see who we?re playing,? Moore said. ?We didn?t have the consistency we needed to have last year and we have to be a lot better at that.?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rgsports/~3/q2ro6uFWZ5A/moore-oregon-season-ducks-team.html.csp

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