ROCK HILL, SC – Winthrop head volleyball coach Sally Polhamus has announced that the Eagles will play a 30-match regular season schedule in 2009 which includes 15 home matches, 16 Big South Conference matches and appearances in four invitational tournaments, including their own Hilton Garden Inn Invitational and the Wingate Inn Classic in early September.
The Eagles are looking to rebound from last year’s11-20 overall record which included 7-9 slate and fifth place finish in the Big South Conference. Polhamus will once again send a young team into battle this season as the 14-player roster includes two sophomores and four freshmen to go along with one senior and seven juniors. The lone senior is 2008 All-Big South selection Kelley Taylor.
“The 2009 schedule provides us with a very good mix of teams from different conferences and from different levels. We are again opening the season with four tournaments that hopefully will give us the confidence that we need as we start conference play in late September,” says Polhamus, who begins her third season at the helm of the Eagles.
“We start off the season with the College of Charleston, Clemson and South Carolina. I believe the experience we got on our spring tour in Italy will help us against teams like these,” she said. “A lot of the teams that we faced in Italy had powerful serves and that was the dominant part of their game along with the block. Those skills will be very similar to what Clemson and South Carolina will be bringing when we open at the Clemson Invitational on Aug. 28-29.”
The 16 Big South Conference matches include home and away contests against eight other Big South schools. The league should be very competitive again following last year’s season that ended in a three-way tie for first place during the regular season between Liberty, High Point and Coastal Carolina. Liberty went on to win its second straight tournament title. Several schools return teams with maturity and depth, according to Polhamus.
Following the season-opening tournament at Clemson, Winthrop will travel to Tampa (Sept. 4-5) to play in the South Florida Invitational that includes a field of Prairie View A&M, Florida Atlantic and the host USF Bulls. The Eagles make their home debut on Sept.11-12 when they face Morgan State, Appalachian State, North Carolina Central and Butler in the Hilton Garden Inn Invitational. After a visit to Furman on Sept. 15, Winthrop will return home on the weekend of Sept. 18-19 to host the Wingate Inn Classic where they will face Davidson, Georgia Southern and James Madison.
Big South action gets underway on Sept. 25 when Winthrop travels to Lynchburg, VA to face the Liberty Flames. Winthrop’s first home conference match will be against Radford on Oct. 3.
The 2008 Big South Conference Championship Tournament will be held Nov. 19-21 at the Dedmon Center on the campus of Radford. The winner of the tournament will receive the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament which begins Dec. 4 with first round matches. The Big South tournament winner will also participate in the first Big South/Southern Conference Challenge to be held on Nov. 25.
For a complete look at the 2009 Winthrop volleyball schedule, please visit: www.winthropeagles.com.
