The BG women’s volleyball team will head out on the road this weekend for the very first time as they will compete in the Wright State tournament in Dayton, Ohio.
The team is looking to get back on track as they started off on the wrong foot, going 0-3 in last weeks Hampton Inn Invitational at the Stroh Center. This is the first time in 10 years the team has compiled a record like this.
The Wright State tournament will consist of IPFW, Wright State and CSU Bakersfield who have all won at least two games or more this season.
The Falcons will again be the youngest team in the tournament as all three teams attending the contest have at least four upperclassmen, compared to BG who only has two seniors, no juniors, five sophomores and six freshman.
Although BG has a young team, there’s some potential in the young guns, like freshman Nicole Slimko who had a great showing at the Hampton Inn Invitational which got her named the Pizza Hut Athlete of the Week.
Slimko finished with 19 kills in her collegiate volleyball debut match, along with posting 14 kills in the second match. This was the first time in BG history since Corey Domek in 2007 when a player posted a minimum of 14 kills in consecutive matches to start their career. She is also the first freshman to do it in almost two decades.
Sophomore Jelena Sunjic is also a player to watch out for as she was named to the preseason All MAC East team this year. Sunjic started 20 games as a freshman, had 299 kills last year along with 66 blocks and was named to the all MAC freshman team.
Even with Slimko and Sunjic stepping up they will need the whole team, lead by seniors Kelsey Bates and Erica Fullenkamp, to pull out their entire arsenal as the schedule will not get any easier moving from non-conference to conference play.
BG will have their first match against CSU Bakersfield tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. in the C.J. McLin gymnasium at Wright State. The Roadrunners are currently 2-1 of the season and look to build off of their 21-12 record from last year.
BG will then play 3-0 IPFW on Saturday at 3 p.m., followed by the host school Wright State, who is 2-2 of the season, at 8 p.m.