VOLLEYBALL
Montana Western Volleyball opens up the season on Friday, August 16 at the season opening College of Idaho Preseason Tournament. The Bulldogs will play four games this weekend, kicking off a three-weekend road stretch to kick off the 2024 season.
Opening on Friday, the Bulldogs will face off with Viterbo University (Wis.) early in the morning and will follow later that evening with a contest against Morningside University (Iowa). They will then close out the tournament the following day with a matchup against the host College of Idaho, followed by a tough Eastern Oregon University later that same day.
The Bulldogs enter the 2024 season as the reigning Frontier Conference tournament champions after they capped off the historic 2023 campaign with an overall 22-8 record. The Bulldogs posted their highest win percentage since the 1996 season and made their first ever appearance in the NAIA Women's Volleyball National Tournament and went 1-2 overall. UMW was recently picked to finish first in the Frontier Conference in the preseason polls.
UMW will be returning 15 players from last season's conference championship squad, including all-conference players Danyel Martin, Jordan Olson, Jazi Smith, and all-freshman team selection Sophie Worden. In addition, the Bulldogs return standout libero Kelsey Goddard who was third in the conference for total digs (556) and fourth in the conference for digs per set (5.20) after last season.
"We are really excited about this year. We are bringing back a lot of our core after graduating only two seniors," Head Coach Katie Lovett said. "We have a really tough schedule ahead of us, not only in the Frontier Conference, but also with our out of conference schedule as well. We are really optimistic about it and excited about going against some really tough competition early on."
