June 27, 2002
Bowling Green, Ky. - The Western Kentucky University volleyball team will play four regular-season tournaments and face off with two NCAA Tournament teams in a difficult 2002 schedule released today.
"We will be facing a tremendously challenging schedule early on," said Lady Topper head coach Travis Hudson. "Playing 17 of our first 19 matches on the road will be a challenge for our young team, but I think it will prepare us for play in a conference that requires quite a bit of travel."
WKU will open the 2002 campaign in Statesboro, Ga. at the Georgia Southern Invitational. The Lady Toppers open the event against Samford on Friday, Aug. 30 at 9 a.m. (CDT), while also taking on Charleston Southern, Memphis and Georgia State during the weekend. Three other preseason tournaments -- at Purdue, Western Illinois and Dayton -- will pit Western against Big Ten opponents Purdue and Iowa, as well as ACC member Virginia. The home portion of the schedule gets underway Sept. 10 when WKU hosts defending Conference USA champion and 2001 NCAA participant Cincinnati at 7 p.m. Due to renovations of Diddle Arena, the sites for this, and other home matches are still pending.
"Our four tournaments will be an early challenge," added Hudson. "Georgia Southern is a tournament I feel we can go down and compete very well in. Purdue will give me a chance to go against (Boilermaker head coach) Jeff Hulsmeyer who got me my first job (Hulsmeyer led the Lady Topper program from 1990-92), and Dayton will be our toughest tournament from top to bottom."
The Lady Toppers will begin defense of their back-to-back Sun Belt East Division championships on Sept. 25 when they travel to Middle Tennessee for a 7 p.m. match. WKU will follow that with a three-match conference homestand against Louisiana-Lafayette (Sept. 27), Arkansas State (Oct. 4) and Arkansas-Little Rock (Oct. 5) before traveling to Miami on Oct. 12 to battle Florida International in a rematch of last season's Sun Belt Conference Tournament championship match. WKU will also host New Orleans, South Alabama, FIU and MTSU in SBC matches. Western will wrap up the regular season at North Texas on Nov. 15 before traveling back to Miami for the Sun Belt Tournament Nov. 20-23.
"Getting to conference play will be a nice change for us, as we get to play eight of our final 16 matches at home," said Hudson. "(Sun Belt Teams) will be marking their calenders to play us this year, which is a credit to how far our program has come the past few years."
The Lady Toppers return three starters and eight letterwinners from the 2001 squad that finished 24-6 and 13-1 in the Sun Belt Conference.
-- WKU --
