Morgan State begins the 2011 season this weekend in Philadelphia.
BALTIMORE, Md. (Aug. 25, 2010)-After nearly three weeks of preseason camp, the Morgan State volleyball team will kick off its 2011 campaign this weekend (Aug. 26-27) when they travel to Philadelphia, Pa. to take part in the La Salle Invitational.
The Lady Bears open up play on Friday against Saint Peter's at 3 p.m. and Providence at 7 p.m., before closing out the tournament on Saturday against Canisius (2 p.m.) and host La Salle at 7 p.m. All games will be held at the Gola Center and fans can follow the action via live stats by clicking here.
“I think if we go in there and we play hard and be competitive I think we have a good chance to win some matches and fight for that first-place trophy,” said Morgan State head coach Ramona Riley-Bozier on this weekend's tournament. “Not taking anything away from the other teams, but this is the right place that we needed to be to open up with teams that are still solid and good teams but not really being overwhelming.”
Last season the Lady Bears finished 6-20 overall, 4-6 in the MEAC good for fourth-place in the MEAC North Division. For the last two seasons the Lady Bears have been plagued by injuries and unfortunately they still are following preseason injuries to seniors Kierra Riley and Dina Beamon, who were competing hard and according to Riley Bozier, probably could have started. Instead they may be out for the next three to four weeks.
“Kierra [Riley] was playing well at the beginning of preseason and we thought that her ankle was broken, but they said that it wasn't. I would have liked to have had her this weekend because of the experience and she had been playing well and probably would have been our other middle hitter. Then Dina [Beamon], who was one of our better passers, would have added that depth in the back row. Not having them really hurts us so that means we need a couple of freshmen to step up.”
Added Riley-Bozier, “I think the difference this year is that we can move a few people around and there's a little more depth in every position. We are definitely in a better position in having a little more depth than we've had the last few years.”
This season the Lady Bears welcome eight newcomers to go along with seven returners. While the preseason started off a little slow with all the additions, Riley-Bozier believes that this year's team is better at this time than it was last season.
“I thought we started out kind of slow because we had eight new players, so we were asking them to do something different than they were accustomed to coming out of high school or junior college,” said Riley-Bozier. “It started out slow, but I think as time went on it got a lot better. All in all for preseason, I think we are in a better place than we were from last year at this time.”
Fortunately for Morgan State with all the new additions it was able to get some real-time match experience prior to kicking off the season, when it took on the MSU alumni team last Sunday. It also allowed the team to perform at home, a place that for some reason has been a struggle for the Lady Bears, as they are a combined 5-17 at Hill Field House in the last four seasons.
“I'm excited that we had an opportunity to play prior to this weekend just to get us ready and to see what we would be like playing in our own gym,” said Riley-Bozier. That (playing well at home) seems like that's always been a little struggle for the team the last few years. The alumni that did show up, I would have liked for it to have been a little more competitive, but yet it was good competition for us. We came out victorious (3-1), which I'm happy about, but I wasn't necessarily pleased with how we actually played. So we have a lot of things left to work on. We have a lot of new bodies out there and we have to wait and see what we have going on this weekend.”
Added Riley-Bozier, “I am excited about the transfer kids that we have coming in. They know how to win and are use to winning. They are going to play hard and compete and I'm excited about that. Hopefully that will be a carry over for this weekend.”
