SUU Volleyball Opens Summit League Slate this Week Add Comment    Sep 14, 2011

CEDAR CITY, Utah - Sept. 13 - Southern Utah University womens volleyball will open its Summit League schedule this weekend when the Thunderbirds host the UMKC Kangaroos on Thursday and the South Dakota Coyotes on Saturday night. The T-Birds will then head out for their first conference road game at Oral Roberts on Monday night.

This is really where we get into the most important part of the season, head coach Debby Baker said. We want to have a strong start to our conference season and I think our girls really came out and played hard last weekend and we expect that kind of effort in every match.

The Thunderbirds are undefeated in conference home openers since the program returned in 2009 with a 3-1 victory over IPFW that year and a 3-0 victory over Centenary in 2010. Southern Utah and UMKC split conference matches in 2010 with the road team taking the victory. The all-time series is deadlocked at 2-2 after home teams came away victorious in 2009.

Southern Utahs offense in 2010 has been paced by Analaine Pelaez-Mailoto who is leading the team with 152 kills so far this year, averaging 3.80 per set to rank second in the Summit League. Freshman Gabi Mirand has continued to improve each week directing the Thunderbird attack, totaling 308 assists this season.

Defensively, the T-Bird block has been strong so far in 2011 with the team just shy of 90 total blocks and on a pace to set a new school record by the end of the year. The 89.5 blocks is second in the Summit League with Cashaana Renfro among the league leaders in blocks per set.

Game time on Thursday night is set for 7:00 p.m. with the game on Saturday being played at 1:00 p.m. The match in Tulsa on Monday night is scheduled for a 6:00 p.m. (MT) start. Live stats for all three matches is anticipated to be available online at www.suutbirds.com.

att: VB2011-4.pdf (notes)

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Utah College Sports Wire