November 30, 2007

Men's Volleyball 2007-2008 Season Preview

SANTA CRUZ, CA -- UC Santa Cruz Men’s Volleyball announces schedule and prepares for 2008 season. The 2008 season is complete with two trips for DIII tournaments, a host of DI opponents and 10 home matches. 

The important DIII matches are key for the Slugs to earn a bid to the Molten Invitational, the DIII National Championship. In January, the team will play DIII Carthage College, Milwaukee School of Engineering and Fontbonne. These matches will help to determine the at-large bid for the Molten Invitational. Then, in February, the team will travel to Rochester, NY to compete in the Nazareth Tournament.

While at home in California, the team will travel to meet DI opponents such as UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC Santa Barbara.  The Slugs will also host DI Stanford and Pacific. UC Santa Cruz will continue to play additional NAIA and club matches throughout the season; including NAIA Holy Names and club UC Berkeley, UC Davis and Santa Clara.

The Slugs return six starters from the 2007 squad. This strong returning core includes three outside hitters including seniors Bryan Shires (2007 All-American) and Art Mueller, and junior Brice Dahlmeier. Also returning are sophomores Austin Einhorn (middle blocker) and Eric Rowell (setter). The team also returns starting junior libero Jeff Hogg.

In addition, UC Santa Cruz returns four veteran players including junior setter Matt Smiley (setter) and junior outside hitter Chris Konish. Sophomore’s Brad Sullivan and Justin Lam will add to the starting line-up.

The team is glad to welcome 10 new players to the team. Freshman setter Ryan Fickenscher, and middle blockers Alex Schwartz, Jason Moon and Shane Yablonka will greatly help the team as will Dennis Chen, Ron Chau, and Weston Buckner