After two weeks of road trips the Falcons return home this weekend to host the Best Western Invitational in Anderson Arena.
BG has not played a home game since its Aug. 28th sweep of Oakland University.
“It will be fun to play at Anderson again just having the players back in school and in classes,” said head Coach Denise Van De Walle after last weekend’s road trip to New Mexico.
This weekend the Falcons will play host to three teams all coming in with a similar record to the Falcons. Tonight the Falcons host the DePaul Blue Demons at 7 p.m. and conclude the tournament tomorrow with a 12:30 start against the Duquesne University Dukes and a nightcap against the Valpraiso University Crusaders.
Tonight against DePaul the Falcons welcome in a team that has won four straight since starting their season 0-5.
The Blue Demons are coming off their own invitational which they won with wins over Samford, Kennesaw and South Alabama.
DePaul is a young team has a roster of 14 players containing eight freshman and only two seniors.
Depaul is led by freshman outside hitter Charla Drabant who recently won the Big East Honor for Freshman of the Week with a school record 31.0 points in their match against Northern Illinois of September 5.
BG starts the second day of games tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. against Duquesne. The Dukes come in with a 6-4 record after the Fiesta Bowl Tournament at Northern Arizona in which they went 1-2 last weekend.
The Dukes are relatively experienced. They return 10 athletes from a team that went 11-21 last season including three all-conference players. Two of which are returning, sophomore setter Chelsea Tillotson and senior middle hitter Jenni Gross.
The Falcons close out the tournament tomorrow with a 7:30 p.m. match against Valpraiso. The Crusaders currently hold a record of 6-2 having only lost to Indiana State and Illinois. They are led statistically by Angie Porche with 106 kills equaling out to more than 13 kills a game.
The Falcons look to win their first tournament of the year in what will be the final tune up for their Mid-American Conference schedule that begins Thursday against Miami.
