Ags aim for post season

[CrimsonPhantom]

By Jim Hilley

Las Cruces Bulletin

The good news for New Mexico State University volleyball coach Mike Jordan is that his team has been picked as the favorite in the Western Athletic Confer­ence for the 2012 season.

Jordan, however, doesn’t sound all that comfortable about the favorite mantle.

“I think we are one of the favorites,” he said. “Idaho returns a lot of players from last year’s team and a couple of other teams are going to be solid, but I like our chances this year.”

Jordan said the Aggies will have more depth on the front line this year – as long as they aren’t bit by the injury bug that has claimed some middle hitters in the last couple of years.

“There’s some good competition go­ing on,” he said.

The bad news is that Jordan won’t have much time to bask in pre-season accolades, as the Aggies have scheduled another tough pre-conference slate.

“You have to make the assump­tion that we don’t win the conference tournament championship and win the automatic bid,” Jordan said. “We made that assumption when we scheduled. We have to schedule teams that are high in the RPI and hopefully get some wins.

“The hard part of that is we are do­ing this all in the first few weeks of the season.”

The early part of the Aggies’ schedule includes Northern Illinois, which was in the top 20 in RPI last year, and Wichita State and North Dakota State – both top-50 teams a year ago. All three played in the NCAA tournament last year, Jordan said.

It doesn’t get any easier.

“We come home, we host Cincinnati, who was 20th in the RPI last year,” Jor­dan said. “Northwestern is a good solid Big 10 team, and Drake.”

The Aggies will play Mountain West Champion Colorado State on the road, as well as Pepperdine – an Elite-8 team last year – and Florida International (FIU).

“FIU always has a solid team,” Jordan said. “Then of course we have UTEP and UNM on the road this year.”

With added depth this season, the Ag­gies may be able to pull off some of those high RPI games.

Jordan said he doesn’t expect the un­settled situation in the WAC conference to have much of an impact on volleyball.

“Obviously we lost a great team in Hawaii, but we replaced a couple of teams that have been struggling a little bit with some pretty good teams in Texas State and I think Denver has a nice team – Texas San Antonio, they’re all solid, so I still think it’s a good league,” he said.

“I don’t know what is going to hap­pen a year from now, when all those guys leave, and who’s going to join us, but I don’t think it is going to affect us much. I think we will be a contender year in and year out.”

[CrimsonPhantom]

Ags favored in volleyball

First Serve Banquet scheduled Aug. 22



Las Cruces Bulletin


The Western Athletic Conference volleyball coaches have selected New Mexico State Uni­versity as the favorite to win the WAC regular­season crown in 2012.

The coaches also voted on the preseason award winners, and Aggie sophomore outside hitter Meredith Hays was the pick for WAC Preseason Player of the Year.

NMSU received eight of the 10 first-place votes with Idaho earning the other two. The Aggies earned 79 total points, followed by Idaho with 67. The University of Texas-San An­tonio was picked to finish third with 58 points, followed closely by Utah State in fourth with 57 points and Texas State in fifth with 52. Denver was picked sixth with 43 points, while San Jose State was selected seventh with 34 points. University of Texas-Arlington, Seattle University and Louisiana Tech rounded out the poll with 27, 18 and 15 points, respectively.

“Preseason polls don’t mean much,” NMSU coach Mike Jordan said. “No one is going to give us points and wins, we’ve got to go out and earn them.”

NMSU placed the most players on the pre­season All-WAC team with three, while Idaho, UTSA and Utah State had two apiece. Joining Hays on the preseason team are teammates Lauren Loerch and Desiree Scott, Idaho’s Alex Sele and Allison Walker, UTSA’s McKenzie Adams and Whitney Walls, Utah State’s Shay Sorensen and Joselyn White, Denver’s Faimie Kingsley, San Jose State’s Alex Akana and Texas State’s Amari Deardorff.

Hays was a 2011 first team All-WAC mem­ber as a freshman and the 2011 Freshman of the Year. She is only the second Aggie ever to earn that honor. She led the WAC and ranked 18th in the nation in both kills per set (4.42) and points per set (4.94). Hays also led the WAC with 500 kills on the season.

Scott played in 98 sets as a sophomore last season, ranking second on the team in blocks per set (0.78) and third in total blocks (76). She was a perfect six kills on six attempts during a sweep of Utah State on Oct. 1, 2011. Loerch, a cousin of former Ag­gie great Stevi (Adams) Maytubby, comes to NMSU as a transfer from California. She was a part of the 2010 Bear team that reached the NCAA National Championship match against Penn State.

The 2012 season begins the weekend of Aug. 24 with all 10 teams in action. The 2012 WAC Volleyball Tournament, hosted by UTSA, will be held Nov. 19-21, at the Convocation Center in San Antonio, Texas, and will include the top eight teams in the regular-season standings. The championship match will be televised live on ESPNU.

The NMSU volleyball team hosts its annual Alumni Match, at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18, in the Pan American Center. Admission is free.

The NMSU volleyball team’s annual First Serve Banquet will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 22, at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, 4100 Dripping Springs Road. Tickets are $45 for an individual or a table near the front seating six guests and two Aggie volleyball players is $400.

Kyle Doperalski will be the emcee and coach Jordan will talk about the upcoming season and introduce the Aggies’ new players.

For more information or to purchase tick­ets, call 646-7714.