SWOSU vs. Eastern New Mexico Friday, Sept. 6, 12 pm Live Stats

SWOSU vs. New Mexico Highlands Friday, Sept. 6, 4 pm Live Stats

SWOSU at Midwestern State Saturday, Sept. 7, 11 am Live Stats

SWOSU vs. Emporia State Saturday, Sept. 7, 3 pm Live Stats

Setting the Scene
The SWOSU volleyball team will open the 2013 season, the ninth the program's existence, this weekend at the Midwestern State Hampton Inn-vitational in Wichita Falls, Texas.

The Lady Bulldogs will face Eastern New Mexico and New Mexico Highlands on Friday before meeting host Midwestern State and Emporia State on Saturday.
 
Previous Meetings
SWOSU will be facing a pair of teams – Eastern New Mexico and Midwestern State – that used to be conference foes as members of the Lone Star Conference. The Lady Dawgs lead the all-time series with ENMU 4-2, but the teams have not met since the 2010 season. Midwestern State holds a 5-4 series edge, but SWOSU won the meeting between the team's last season.

New Mexico Highlands and Emporia State are both 2-0 against SWOSU with all the meetings coming at early season tournaments. The Bulldogs last met NMHU in 2010 and faced Emporia State last season.
 
The Coaches
Josh Collins is in his second season as the head volleyball coach at SWOSU after serving as an assistant the previous seven seasons. His first team finished 13-20 overall but rallied for a 10-4 conference record, finishing fourth in the Great American Conference.

Sia Poyer is the new head coach at Eastern New Mexico after serving eight seasons in the same position at Valdosta State. He led VSU to three consecutive winning seasons and a combined 112-119 record.

Bryan Crawford is entering his second season as the head coach at New Mexico Highlands after previous stops at Iowa Central and Snow College. His first team at NMHU finished 6-23 and finished seventh in the RMAC's West Division.

Venera Flores-Stafford enters her 10th season at the helm of the Midwestern State volleyball program as the winningest volleyball coach in school history. She has an overall record of 153-138 at MSU and she's led the Mustangs to three 20-win seasons.

Bing Xu begins his eighth year as the head coach at Emporia State after serving three years as the assistant coach for the Hornets. He is 173-63 in his first seven seasons at ESU.
 
Last Time Out
The 2012 volleyball season came to a close for SWOSU in the semifinals of the Great American Conference tournament against top-seed Harding. SWOSU rallied from down two sets to push the host Lady Bisons to five sets before succumbing 15-11 in the fifth.

SWOSU was led by Lindsay Dusin and Alison Cole combining for 29 of the teams' 56 kills.  
 
Picked Third
Coming off a fourth-place finish in 2012, the Southwestern Oklahoma State University volleyball team has been picked to finish third in the Great American Conference in 2013.

Defending champion Harding, who went 14-0 in GAC action last season, is the preseason pick to win the conference. The Lady Bisons received seven first-place votes and finished with 97 points total. Arkansas Tech was the only other team to garner first-place votes, picking up four of them and 94 total points.

SWOSU comes in at third with 78 points and the Lady Dawgs were followed closely by Southern Nazarene and Southern Arkansas.
 
Second Season
Josh Collins returns four starters and nine letterwinners from last year's team which finished 13-20 (10-4 GAC). The Bulldogs' 10 conference wins and fourth-place Great American Conference finish from last season are both program bests. In addition, Collins led SWOSU to the program's first postseason win, defeating Ouachita Baptist 3-1 in the first round of the GAC Tournament.
 
All-Conference Returner
Headlining the list of returners is senior middle hitter Alison Cole, an All-GAC second team selection last season. Cole led the Bulldogs with 265 kills and 101 blocks last season and she was very efficient in the middle, hitting at a .250 clip. Her hitting percentage is the third-best in a single season in SWOSU volleyball history.

Overall, the Bulldogs return three of their top five threats from an offense that averaged 10.5 kills per set.
 
Starters Back
Joey Collins and Christina Darras both return at the hitter positions after finishing last season with 200 or more kills. Collins finished fourth on the team with 209 kills while Darras put down exactly 200 kills. Kiley Brennfoerder and Saasha Jacobson are the other two returning starters for SWOSU. Brennfoerder made 20 starts last season and ranked second on the team with 69 blocks while Jacobson finished the year as the primary libero and averaged a team-high 4.1 digs per set.
 
Looking Ahead
A midweek meeting with Oklahoma City will be the 2013 home opener for SWOSU heading to Colorado for the Thunderwolves Classic where they will face Southwest Baptist, CSU-Pueblo, Lindenwood and Wayne State.