Chippewas season opener at Iowa Invitational
After a summer of training, the Central Michigan volleyball team opens the regular season today.
CMU begins its journey for an NCAA Tournament bid at the Iowa Invitational when it takes the court against Iowa, the tournament host.
“We’re going in blind a little bit,” head coach Erik Olson said. “We don’t exchange video for the first weekend. We’ll get a scouting report on Marquette and Saint Louis before we play them, but we won’t on Iowa.”
The Hawkeyes finished last in the Big Ten last season and lost many seniors, but Iowa has the home advantage.
“We’ve been beating ourselves up here at our gym and have had some of the most intense scrimmages ever at any place I’ve been at,” Olson said.
After the Hawkeyes, the Chippewas play Marquette, who finished fourth in the Big East a season ago. CMU played the Golden Eagles last season at the Marquette Invitational, where it also played against Wisconsin and Creighton.
“They lost their All-Big East setter and middle blocker so that’s good,” Olson said. “But they have an All-Big East outside hitter who plays much like (Kaitlyn) McIntyre.”
Saint Louis, who is the final team CMU will play in the weekend tournament, finished last season with the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic 10 Conference and only lost one senior.
“We haven’t heard much about any of the teams this year,” said junior defensive specialist Samantha Brawley. “I think it will be a good start for us. All three teams are at the top of the nation and it will be good to start off strong.”
So what do the Chippewas have to do to secure a winning record coming out of this tournament?
“We need to focus on the task at hand,” Olson said. “We need to communicate and be aggressive. If our setters give us the ball to be aggressive, we need to get after it. You’ll hear me all season long, it comes down to serving and passing.”
