Marquette University Athletics
Marquette Women's Volleyball Announces 2008 Schedule
7/17/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
July 17, 2008
Complete Schedule in PDF Format 
MILWAUKEE--A schedule that includes a total of six teams that played in the NCAA Tournament a year ago awaits the Marquette women's volleyball team as they prepare for the season with seven newcomers in tow.
Starting the season, Marquette will host three tournaments at the Al McGuire Center to acclimate a young roster to the college game at a manageable pace.
"We worked hard to get a strong home schedule so that we wouldn't have to be on the road early in the season, which is especially important for a team this young," head coach Pati Rolf said.
Marquette will first welcome Houston, Chattanooga and Tennessee for the Marquette Kickoff Tournament in the last week of August.
The following weekend, Marquette will travel to Cedar Falls, Iowa to take part in another early season tournament. For their first two games at the UNI Tournament the Golden Eagles will face NCAA teams in Clemson and Northern Iowa before finishing up with Northern Illinois.
"Towards the end of last season the kids were tired," Rolf said. "That really affected their performances down the stretch. We are trying to be more aware of the physical strain of travel, which is why we set up away tournaments at UNI and Western Michigan that are close to home"
After returning, the Al McGuire Center will play host to two tournaments before BIG EAST Conference play starts. The Marquette Challenge is scheduled for the weekend of September 13 and will see Temple, Bowling Green along with in-state rival Green Bay come to Milwaukee.
In the inaugural Wisconsin Cheese Bowl the Golden Eagles will play first-time opponents Oregon State and American on September 20 and then face Wisconsin the following evening.
Last season Marquette had a 10-4 record at the Al McGuire Center, while they lost all 12 games on the road. The BIG EAST schedule should be especially interesting, as the teams they earned their five conference victories against last season are all road games this year.
BIG EAST play starts September 26 when Rutgers plays host to the Golden Eagles, a team Marquette defeated in three straight sets to open the 2007 BIG EAST season.
Their first conference home match will take place against 2007 BIG EAST Champion and NCAA participant St. John's on October 3. That weekend Marquette will welcome Connecticut before heading on a two-game road trip that will take them to Tampa, Fla. and Washington D.C. Although quite a few miles will be traveled, the Golden Eagles face squads in USF and Georgetown that they handily dispatched at home last season.
Upon their return, Marquette will have four-straight home games during the stretch run of conference play. After playing host to Syracuse, the Golden Eagles welcome cross-town rival Wis.-Milwaukee to the Al McGuire Center. The following weekend, NCAA participant and last season's BIG EAST Runner-up, Louisville, will come to Milwaukee followed that Sunday by Cincinnati.
The beginning of November will see things heat up for the Golden Eagles as four of their six conference matches are on the road starting with DePaul on Nov. 1. Marquette will then travel to Notre Dame, Villanova and Seton Hall.
"It is going to be painful," Rolf said. "Last year we had three weekends in a row on the road. I am hoping that because Notre Dame and DePaul are close in location it will not be as bad as it looks. The Villanova, Seton Hall weekend is going to be a tough one."
However, Rolf thinks those two-straight weekend trips being later in the season is more beneficial to a roster that is inexperienced.
"I think if this team was older it would be better to have these trips earlier," said Rolf. "But because this team is so young I like it at the end. It will allow them to get their feet under them, establish some consistency before they face that bump in the road in the early part of November."
After the early November road swing the Golden Eagles return home to finish out the BIG EAST regular season with games against West Virginia and Pittsburgh. Marquette plans on then following the Panthers back to Pittsburgh for the BIG EAST Tournament Nov. 21-23.
Following the conference tournament the Golden Eagles will head to Kalamazoo, Mich. on Thanksgiving weekend to play Mid-American Conference members Western Michigan and 2007 MAC Champion Miami (Ohio) University.
