After beginning the season at last week’s tournament in San Angelo, the UTPB volleyball team will be on its home court in this week’s Dr. Steve Aicinena “Iceman” Invitational.
The three-day tournament will begin Thursday and wrap-up on Saturday at Falcon Dome as the Falcons get ready to face three games in as many days.
With first-year head coach CJ Allard in charge, UTPB (2-2) began its 2024 season by splitting its four games in last week’s Kathleen Brasfield Invitational.
UTPB lost its first two games in the tournament, losing to No. 23 Central Oklahoma 3-1 before falling to Fort Lewis College in five sets last Friday.
The Falcons responded by winning its next two, defeating New Mexico Highlands University 3-1 and sweeping Emmanuel University on Saturday.
Allard saw some good things from his team during the tournament and was even more happy to finally get his first victories as a head coach.
“It’s nice,” Allard said. “I’m disappointed that it took three matches to get there. We opened the season against Central Oklahoma so we knew it was going to be tough, regardless. We played them pretty tough. We had a chance against Fort Lewis. We had two match points. We were down 24-19 and came back to win and force a fifth set. I’m extremely proud of the fight but once we get to that fifth set, we have to take advantage. The perks in the NCAA Division II is how much your region matters when it comes to rankings and post season and at-large bids. We’ll take all the wins we can get. Getting that win on Saturday was awesome. The girls fueled who we played Saturday afternoon because that was one of the best matches you could ever put together, four matches into the season.”
UTPB will begin this week’s tournament at 5 p.m. Thursday against Sul Ross State before facing Southeastern Oklahoma State at 2 p.m. Friday.
The team will finish up with a 2:30 p.m. Saturday game against New Mexico Highlands.
For Sul Ross State, which is playing its first year in the Lone Star Conference, it’ll be the team’s season opener.
“They’re new to the conference, even though it’s not a conference game,” Allard said. “It’s their season opener so in a way, we’re going to tackle it the same way we tackled our first match. If we take care of our 900 square feet, we’ll expect the outcome to fall in our favor. But it’s tough to watch film on them from last year. It doesn’t give us a great picture heading into Thursday but we’re going to take care of our side of the net and expect that to be good enough.”
The Falcons are still in the early stages of the season with tournaments taking place not only this week but also next week when UTPB competes at the Lone star Conference Crossover in Laredo Sept. 19-20.
UTPB will begin conference play against Eastern New Mexico at 6 p.m. Sept. 26 at Falcon Dome.
Currently, Gloria Geurin leads the team in kills with 40 while Logan Terrazas has 34 and Kennedi Wright sits at 33.
The Falcons are looking to improve off last year’s 17-10 showing.
With this week’s tournament starting on Thursday, the Falcons have had to adjust to a shortened week to prepare.
“The recovery from last week, leading into this week is a little bit shorter but as far as the practice load and the film load, we keep it pretty consistent,” Allard said. “We’re going to go hard in the paint on Wednesday and play Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It’s a unique layout. If you look at our schedule, we play at home on Thursdays and Saturdays on the road in the conference … We have a bunch of unique weeks and this is just one of them.”
