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Lyons Announces Volleyball Schedule
July 07, 2016 04:05 PM | Volleyball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Director of Athletics Shane Lyons announced the 2016 West Virginia University volleyball schedule on Thursday.
The slate features 12 home games for the Mountaineers, including a home tournament, as well as nonconference action in Charleston, West Virginia; University Park, Pennsylvania and California. Fourteen matches will be played against opponents who qualified for the 2015 NCAA Championships.
I think it’s a very competitive schedule,” said coach Reed Sunahara, who enters his second year at the helm. “We will find out early where we stand. We’ll be competing against nine teams that made the NCAA Tournament. It will be great preparation for the upcoming Big 12 season.”
Following the Gold/Blue Scrimmage on Aug. 20, WVU officially opens the season on Aug. 26 at the Penn State Classic in University Park, Pennsylvania. The Mountaineers will face the host Nittany Lions, who finished the 2015 season ranked No. 9 in the AVCA Coaches Poll after reaching the regional semifinals of the 2015 NCAA Tournament, at 7 p.m. on Friday before taking on North Carolina and Georgia Southern on Saturday. The Tar Heels came in at No. 25 in the final coaches’ poll of the 2015 season after advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
West Virginia kicks off September by co-hosting The Capitol Classic with in-state foe Marshall at the Charleston Civic Center on Sept. 2-3. The squad will take on Indiana State on Friday morning before defending the Golden Ball trophy against the Thundering Herd later that evening. WVU’s part in the event will wrap up Saturday morning against Morehead State.
The Mountaineers head to the West Coast from Sept. 9-12, where they will compete in a three-match tournament at Cal before heading to Pacific. After opening with the Cal Bears on Friday, WVU will face Santa Clara and Grand Canyon in Berkeley in front of several families as both junior Gianna Gotterba and senior Haley Roe hail from Northern California. On Sept. 12, the team will make the hour-long trip to Stockton for a nonconference match at Pacific, where Gotterba will face her twin sister Katrin, who is the libero for the Tigers.
The bulk of the nonconference slate wraps up in Morgantown with the WVU Invitational on Sept. 16-17. The Mountaineers welcome Winthrop, Akron and Dartmouth for the event, and will face the Eagles on Friday evening before squaring off with the Zips on Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening’s finale will be a showdown between the Mountaineers and the Big Green.
Following tradition, West Virginia opens Big 12 play on Sept. 20 when perennial contender Texas comes to town. The Longhorns were the 2016 national runner-up after falling to Nebraska in the title game last December. After a trip to Lubbock, Texas, to face Texas Tech on Sept. 24, the Mountaineers return to the WVU Coliseum to host four straight. Home matches against 2015 NCAA tournament qualifiers TCU (Sept. 28) and Iowa State (Sept. 30) close out the month of September.
October kicks off with back-to-back contests against Oklahoma. The Sooners will play in Morgantown twice, on Oct. 7 and 8, after travel issues forced the Mountaineers to play two matches in Norman last season. On Oct. 12, the team will make the short jaunt to Moon Township, Pennsylvania, to close out the nonconference slate at Robert Morris.
Resuming Big 12 play, the Mountaineers travel to Kansas for a pair of matches. They’ll square off with Kansas in Lawrence on Oct. 20 before making their way to Manhattan on Oct. 22 to face Kansas State. Both squads made last year’s NCAA tournament, with the Jayhawks falling to eventual champion Nebraska in the semifinals. The team caps the month by hosting Texas Tech in Morgantown on Oct. 29.
WVU will hit the road for four of its six matches in November, starting Nov. 2 when the Mountaineers travel to Ames, Iowa, for a return trip to Iowa State. The return to Morgantown to host the K-State Wildcats on Nov. 9 before heading to Waco, Texas, to wrap their season series with Baylor on Nov. 12. The home slate closes out on Nov. 16 when WVU welcomes the Jayhawks to the WVU Coliseum. The team will then spend the week of Thanksgiving in Texas, as the Mountaineers first make their way to Fort Worth to face the Horned Frogs (Nov. 23) before capping the regular season in Austin with the Longhorns (Nov. 26).
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