Oct. 12, 2010
Complete Release in PDF Format
OREM, Utah -- The Utah Valley University volleyball team will return to conference play this weekend when it hits the road and travels to the Lone Star State to take on Texas-Pan American Thursday at 6 p.m. MT and Houston Baptist Saturday at 1 p.m. MT.
The Wolverines (11-9, 2-2) are coming off of a week where they went 2-1 at home. Over the three-match homestand, UVU swept both in-state rival Weber State and conference foe Chicago State but ended up falling to the crosstown rival BYU Cougars in front of the largest UVU volleyball crowd in school history (2,206) 25-17, 25-22, 25-20.
Texas-Pan American will enter the match with a 5-14 record and a 2-3 GWC clip. The Broncs are coming off of back-to-back losses at the Dakotas last week. UTPA is led offensively by the week five Great West Conference Offensive Player of the Week, Marci Logan.
The Wolverines hold a decisive 14-1 all-time series advantage against UTPA. The lone series win for the Broncs came back on Oct. 28, 2005, in Edinburg, when it took all five sets to upend UVU.
Houston Baptist enters play this week with a similar record as UVU, 10-9 and 3-2 in conference. The Huskies are coming off of an 0-2 week last week as well, as they lost to both North and South Dakota on the road. HBU is led offensively by Heather Leaverton and Isis Gardner who have 179 and 157 total kills respectively. Leaverton leads the team in kills per set with 2.93, while Gardner is right behind her with 2.49.
HBU has never defeated UVU as the Wolverines lead the all-times series 4-0.
Junior Chelsey Heaps led the Wolverines offensively last week as she put up a team-high of 4.0 kills per set and a hitting percentage of .379. Heaps also tallied 28 kills and 16 digs. Freshman Brookelyn Campbell helped set up the Wolverine attack with 68 assists (9.71 a/s average). The Wolverine setter also averaged 1.29 blocks per set and 2.86 digs/set.
The Wolverines will meet up with both the Broncs and Huskies one more time this season when they come to Orem on Nov. 4 and 5.
Following this week's matches, UVU will return home to host Southern Utah and Boise State on Oct. 19 and 20 respectively. Both of those matches will be televised live locally on UVU-TV (Comcast Ch. 17).
