Friday, June 29, 2007

UTA volleyball team announces 2007 schedule

By Pegasus News wire

UT Arlington head coach Diane Seymour announced the 2007 volleyball schedule on Thursday with tournaments at Marquette, Middle Tennessee and Iowa highlighting the 29 match regular season.

Diane Seymour

"Thirteen preseason matches is going to be a lot for this team," said Seymour. "We played even longer than that last season, so we kind of backed off a match or two this year, hoping to feel a little bit better rested when conference started. In that 13-match preseason schedule, there three opponents that went to the NCAA Tournament last year so that will be good challenges for us. We will definitely be tested in the preseason with all that travel, but that is part of playing in the SLC. We play four of our opponents from the East on the road this season so we figured we would be on the road so much that we might as well get used to it."

The Mavs open the season on Aug. 24 as they travel to take on Houston before opening up their home season against Louisiana Tech on Aug. 28 at 7 p.m. at Texas Hall.

"I think the interesting thing will be doing the single match against Houston instead of a tournament that opening weekend," said Seymour. "We felt we were going to travel so much in the preseason that playing that one match and coming back, getting into classes and then opening up at home with Louisiana Tech would be good for us before hitting the road."

UTA will then begin an 11-match road trip as they take on Oakland, Miami (Fla.) and Marquette at the Marquette Kickoff in Milwaukee, Wisc. on Aug. 31-Sept. 1 before returning to the metroplex to take on TCU on Sept. 5 in Forth Worth. The Mavs will then head to Murfreesboro, Tenn., on Sept. 7-8 to take on Georgia State, Belmont, Middle Tennessee and Northeastern, and close out the road swing against Iowa, College of Charleston and Ball State at the Hawkeye/Holiday Inn Challenge in Iowa City, Iowa, on Sept. 14-15.

"It is disappointing, I will say that," said Seymour." "Especially when you have a class of five seniors that have been so dynamic in this program and they are not getting play at home at Texas Hall a little more, but happens some times."

One thing missing from the schedule this season is the annual UTA Invitational played at Texas Hall.

"We had a team back out of the invitational at the last minute and that caused a couple other teams not want to travel this far and I understand that," said Seymour. "We felt the best thing to do is pack our bags and play a tough non-conference schedule to get us ready for conference play."

The Mavs will finally return home to open Southland Conference play against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Sept. 20 and Texas-San Antonio on Sept. 22. Following a road contest at Texas State (Sept. 29), UTA returns home to face Stephen F. Austin (Oct. 4) and Sam Houston State (Oct. 6).

UTA will play its next four matches on the road and close out the month of October with three straight home matches against Texas State (Oct. 23), Northwestern State (Oct. 25) and Central Arkansas (Oct. 27).

The month of November will resemble the early part of the season as the Mavs will play all four of its conference matches away from Texas Hall. The road swing starts with matches at Southeastern Louisiana (Nov. 2) and Nicholls State (Nov. 3) and ends with matches at Stephen F. Austin (Nov. 7) and Sam Houston State (Nov. 10).

The Southland Conference Tournament will be held at the Convocation Center on the campus of Texas-San Antonio on Nov. 16-18.

The Mavs finished the 2006 season with an overall record of 15-10 and a 12-4 mark in SLC action.

Source: UTA

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