Volleyball Announces 2010 Schedule

DETROIT - The 2010 schedule for the Wayne State University volleyball team has been announced. The Warriors will begin their 36th season of volleyball Sept. 3-4 at an invitational hosted by the University of Indianapolis.

Of Wayne State’s 17 scheduled opponents, nine qualified for the 2009 NCAA Tournament. The Warriors will be tested immediately, as they open with a match Sept. 3 against Indianapolis. The Greyhounds went 38-2 last year and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals, where they lost to the eventual undefeated national champion Concordia-St. Paul.

Wayne State will also meet Tusculum and Truman State, two NCAA regional qualifiers in 2009, as well as West Virginia State before opening its GLIAC schedule Sept. 7 at Hillsdale.

The Warriors will play their first home matches at the Matthaei on Sept. 10 against Lake Erie, which is joining the GLIAC this season after transitioning from NCAA Division III, and Sept. 11 versus Ashland.

The schedule includes three Sunday matches, beginning with a Sept. 19 matchup at Ohio Dominican, another new GLIAC member in 2010 and formerly a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The Panthers will come to Detroit on Sunday, Oct. 24. Wayne State’s other Sunday match is Sept. 26 as WSU hosts Grand Valley State.

The third annual GLIAC/GLVC Crossover will be held Oct. 15-16, with a site and schedule to be determined. Following the Crossover, five of WSU’s seven remaining matches will be played at the Matthaei, leading into the 2010 GLIAC Tournament beginning Thursday, Nov. 11.

Wayne State finished its 2009 season with a 19-9 record, the most wins since 1998 and the best winning percentage since 1997. The Warriors have qualified for the GLIAC Tournament each of the last two years under head coach Phil Nickel.

Warriors 2010 Schedule

		University of Indianapolis Tournament
Friday	September 3	University of Indianapolis	1:30 PM
		Tusculum College	6:00 PM
Saturday	September 4	Truman State University	9:00 AM
		West Virginia State University	1:30 PM
Tuesday	September 7	@ Hillsdale	7:00 PM
Friday	September 10	Lake Erie College	7:00 PM
Saturday	September 11	Ashland	7:00 PM
Saturday	September 18	@ Tiffin	7:00 PM
Sunday	September 19	@ Ohio Dominican	2:00 PM
Friday	September 24	Saginaw Valley State	7:00 PM
Saturday	September 25	Ferris State	4:00 PM
Sunday	September 26	Grand Valley State	2:00 PM
Friday	October 1	@ Findlay	7:30 PM
Saturday	October 2	Hillsdale	4:00 PM
Friday	October 8	@ Lake Superior State	4:00 PM
Saturday	October 9	@ Northwood	4:00 PM
Fri/Sat	October 15-16	GLIAC/GLVC Crossover Tournament	TBA
Friday	October 22	Tiffin	7:00 PM
Sunday	October 24	Ohio Dominican	2:00 PM
Thursday	October 28	@ Ashland	7:00 PM
Saturday	October 30	@ Lake Erie College	2:00 PM
Tuesday	November 2	Findlay	7:00 PM
Friday	November 5	Michigan Tech	7:00 PM
Saturday	November 6	Northern Michigan	4:00 PM
Thursday	November 11	GLIAC Quarterfinals	7:00 PM
Saturday	November 13	GLIAC Semifinals	TBA
Sunday	November 14	GLIAC Finals	TBA
Thu/Fri/Sat	November 18-20	NCAA Regional Tournament	TBA
Thu/Fri/Sat	December 2-4	NCAA Fall Festival	TBA

Athletics Hosts Academic Recognition Luncheon

The Wayne State University Department of Athletics honored the 124 Warrior student-athletes and cheerleaders who recorded at least a 3.50 grade-point average for the Fall 2009 term during its 10th annual Academic Recognition Luncheon held Thursday at Historic St. Andrew's on the WSU campus.
Seven Deans' Award winners were also recognized for having the highest cumulative grade-point average among all student-athletes in that particular college:

* College of Liberal Arts and Sciences - Marlon Leone, Men's Tennis

* College of Education - Brady Cooper, Baseball

* School of Business Administration - Vince Bechard, Men's Cross Country

* School of Social Work - Jessica Condeni, Volleyball

* College of Fine, Performing, and Communication Arts - Meghan Luzod, Women's Tennis

* College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences - Sharon Gill, Women's Tennis

* College of Engineering - Roberto Gomez, Men's Tennis

Spring Season Wrap Up

Last weekend, the Warriors participated in a spring tournament at Bowling Green State University.  In the first match, the Warriors took on the host Falcons, splitting the two sets 25-27 and 25-22.  It was an exciting, and spirited match.  In the second match, the opponent was the Bowling Green Alumni team, which had some really good players.  We played well in the first set, winning 25-21.  In set two, the line-up we put on the floor just didn't click, and we struggled to get anything going. 

After lunch, we played Wright State, a school I coached at many years ago.  We played well again in set one, winning 25-18.  We lost a little momentum in the middle of set two, but fought back, only to fall short 24-26.  That put us at 3-3 in pool play, and matched us up with Bowling Green again for the final match of the tournament.  We played hard, but it was obvious that we were starting to run out of gas.  We dropped both sets, but it was a great way to finish our spring season.

We were very happy with the our spring season, and are very excited about the 2010 fall season.  The schedule will be released by the end of April.  We look forward to seeing you at some matches this fall.

Go Warriors!

Spring Season Update

The Warriors took the court Friday and Saturday last weekend.  The weekend kicked off with an alumni match on Friday night.  We had 13 alumni in attendance, whose playing careers ranged from the early nineties to just last year.  We played 3 sets to 25, with our team winning two and the alumni taking the middle set.  It was a fun evening of volleyball, stories, and laughter.

We started our tournament on Saturday against Madonna, a rematch from the previous weekend.  We played better, leading the entire first set until the very end.  We came back the second set strong and finished them off easily for the split.  In our second match, we played Urbana, again earning the split.  In the afternoon, we took care of business against Rochester College and Hope College to finish the day with a 6-2 record.  The important thing for me was to see improvement over the previous weekend, which we did.  While winning and losing is always important, we used multiple line-ups and tried people in different positions.  We want to improve as much as possible individually during the spring, so that we can hit the ground running in the fall and focus on the team.

We finish our spring season this Saturday at Bowling Green, where we will face the host Falcons, Wright State, and a BGSU alumni team.  The tournament starts at 10 AM at BG's Anderson Arena.

Go Warriors!

Wayne State Spring Tournament

The Warriors are hosting a spring tournament this weekend on Saturday, April 10th.  We would love to see you at some of our matches.  Wayne State's schedule is:

	Court 1
9:00	Wayne State	vs	Madonna
11:00	Wayne State	vs	Urbana
1:30	Wayne State	vs	Rochester College
3:30	Wayne State	vs	Fire Up Dutch

Spring Tournament Recap

We played our first spring tournament on Saturday at Madonna University.  It was a small event, with only 4 teams, but I think that was good for our first spring competition.  All of our matches consisted of 2 sets to 25 points.  We started the day playing the University of Windsor.  We played pretty well and won both sets by scores of 25-18 and 25-11.  In the next match, we played Eastern Michigan.  The speed of the game was significantly different from the first match, and it took us a bit to adjust.  We had the 2nd set tied at 20-20, but couldn't keep pace.  In the final match, we played Madonna.  We played well the first set, leading most of the way, but we couldn't hold the lead late.  We will get another shot at Madonna this weekend in our home tournament.

For our first competition, I was pretty pleased.  We competed in all of our matches, and we played pretty good defense.  Our hitting and blocking need to improve, but some of that is to be expected.  We only have 2 outside hitters, one of which was our libero in the fall.  We have 3 middles, but one has missed a significant part of the spring due to injuries.  The other thing was, while this was our first competition, it was EMU and Madonna's third tournament of the spring.  I expect us to be much better this weekend in our home tournament.

Go Warriors!