Aug. 30, 2007

CHARLESTON, Ill. - Memphis will continue its preseason circuit this weekend when they travel to Charleston, Ill., to participate in the Pepsi Challenge, hosted by Eastern Illinois University. The Tigers will play four matches on the weekend, beginning with a matchup with the home team EIU Panthers at 10 a.m. on Fri., Aug. 31. They will wrap up a doubleheader with a 4:30 p.m. meeting versus Loyola. Saturday will see the Tigers take on Indiana State at 12:30 p.m., and Iona at 4:30 p.m.

About the Tigers The Louisville Invitational...Memphis enters the second weekend of the 2007 schedule with a 1-2 mark after a subpar effort at the Louisville Invitational. Junior setter Laura Côté was the lone Tiger named to the all-tournament team.

The Tigers opened the season with the tough and unenviable task of facing the 26th-ranked Louisville Cardinals on their home floor. After dropping the first set Memphis took the second and held a lead late in the third frame. But Louisville was able to hold off the Tigers in the third and fourth to give Memphis its first season-opening defeat since 2002.

Memphis got 21 kills from Sarah Bury in the second contest, but hit just .099 in a four-game loss to Tennessee Tech. The Tigers then rebounded from its first 0-2 start since 1996-Carrie Yerty's inaugural season on the Tiger sidelines.

Bury leads the Memphis offense with 42 kills in a team-high 122 attempts. Behind Bury, no other Tiger has made as many as 90 swings. All-American Shelby Burton hits .301 and leads the squad with 11 total blocks defensively. Laura Côté has handed out a team-best 141 assists. Freshman right side hitter Kelsey Labrum has been a nice addition to the Tiger offensive attack. Labrum has proved to be a solid fourth option and is averaging 2.00 kills per set.

Redshirt freshman Christine Bach leads the way with 53 digs (4.82 d/g). Senior outside hitter Ashley Liford ranks second on the team with 27 digs. Memphis is averaging 15.82 digs per game.

Scouting the Eastern Illinois Panthers...The host team, Eastern Illinois Panthers, bring a 2-1 record into its home tournament after an impressive weekend at the SMU Invitational. The Panthers swept McNeese State and Western Carolina before falling to SMU in five games to finish as the invitational's runner-up. A strong offensive squad, EIU hits .303 and averages 15.82 kills per game. The Panther offense is led by sisters, Eliza and Alex Zwettler. Eliza, a preseason All-Ohio Valley Conference selection leads the team with 44 kills (4.0 kills per game) and Alex follows with 40 kills and a .326 attack percentage. The Zwettler sisters posted a combined 36 kills in the Panthers 3-2 loss to SMU. Eliza recorded a double-double with 12, while Alex also had a double-double with 17 kills and 17 digs. Lauren Sopcic rounds out the Panthers top three attacking options with 38 kills. She leads the team with a blistering .554 attack percentage. Setter Maren Crabtree has handed out 140 assists.

Also a strong defensive team, the Panthers have held opponents to a .215 average. Libero Shaina Boylan leads the way with 50 digs, including a 27 dig outing against SMU. She has reached double figures in digs in each of the Panthers three matches. Eliza Zwettler is second on the team with 38 digs (3.45 digs per game).

All-time Series vs. Eastern Illinois...Memphis is 2-2 all-time against Eastern Illinois. The two teams have not met since the 1994 season when Memphis swept EIU. The Panthers won the first-ever meeting, 3-2, back in 1982. The two split a pair of contests in the 1984 and 1985 seasons.

Scouting the Loyola Ramblers...Loyola comes into the Pepsi Challenge with a 1-2 mark after one week of action. The Ramblers opened the year by being swept by Northwestern. But they bounced back to sweep DePaul, limiting the Blue Demons to no more than 24 points in any game. They dropped their last contest in a five-game decision to Western Michigan on Tuesday. Junior Sarah Singer slammed a career-high 24 kills. As a team, Loyola hits just .124. The Ramblers have three players with 10 or more kills and just two with attack percentages over .200. UConn transfer Singer leads the way with 18 kills in 46 attempts. Mallory Curran follows with 14.

Defensively, Loyola is led by senior Keily Zins, who has 21 digs. Zins has posted double figures in digs in both matches. Colleen Francis' seven blocks is a team high.

The Ramblers struggled to a 14-16 finish in 2006 and returns eight letterwinners and three starters from that squad. Head Coach Marcie Bomhack welcomes six newcomers to a roster that showcases four seniors and three juniors.

All-time Series vs. Loyola...Memphis has yet to defeat Loyola in two tries in the all-time series. Loyola handed Memphis a five-game setback in the last meeting in 1986.

Scouting the Indiana State Sycamores...For Indiana State, the Pepsi Challenge marks its first preseason tournament of the 2007 season. The Sycamores opened the season with a 3-1 loss to Wright State on Tuesday.

ISU went just 5-25 last year, with a 1-17 record in Missouri Valley play. They have again been picked to finish at the bottom of the league despite returning nine letterwinners and five starters.

Fifth-year head coach Julie Krofcheck's squad is a young one, possessing no seniors. Three juniors lead the team that also showcases seven sophomores and five freshmen. Sophomore outside hitter Kelli Whitaker returns as the leading offensive option after slamming down a team-best 288 kills in 2006. The challenge for the Sycamores will come at the setter position as they lost both setters in Whitney Nichols and Stacey Secrest.

Defensively, ISU does return a strong part of its blocking with Stephanie Voloden and Kristen Kerscher back. Voloden was second on the team with 68 blocks in 2006, while Kerscher had 50 rejects. On the back row, juniors Kristy Cox and Stephanie Meier return after picking up 525 and 228 digs, respectively. Cox and Meier also represent the leading returners from the service line. Meier served up a team-best 27 aces a year ago, while Cox tallied 15.

All-time Series vs. IndianaState...Memphis and Illinois State have met just once on the volleyball court. That meeting came back in the third contest of the 1984 season. The Tigers walked away with a sweep of the Sycamores (15-11, 15-5, 15-10).

Scouting the Iona College Gaels...Iona brings an 0-2 mark into this weekend's pre-season tournament. The Gaels were swept by Kent State and Army in the opening weekend of the season. Iona has not had a player down double figures in kills in either of their matches and hits just .097 as a team while giving up a .303 average. Opponents hold a 99-60 advantage over Iona in the kills department and they are averaging 16.5 kills per game. Kendall Paulus is the team's leading offensive option averaging 2.33 kills per game. Colleen Genett holds the leading attack percentage with a .194 clip. Setter Alyssa Morales has 39 assists (6.50 assists per game).

On the defensive side of the net, Iona has been out dug 101-88 and out blocked 17-6. Allison Nieters averages a team best 4.3 digs per game. Morales checks in with a 3.1 digs per game average.

All-time Series vs. Iona...Memphis and Iona have never met on the volleyball court.

Last Time Out Memphis 3, Coastal Carolina 0...After falling in four games in each of the first two matches, the University of Memphis volleyball squad got on the board in the win column with a sweep of Coastal Carolina in its final match of the Louisville Invitational. The Memphis offense finally got going, and led by a double-double performance by senior Ashley Liford (17 kills, 11 digs), hit .319 to finish in third place in the four-team field. Junior setter Laura Côté handed out a match-best 40 assists en route to being named to the all-tournament team.

Libero Christine Bach posted her third consecutive match with 10 or more digs. She finished with 11. Memphis got five blocks from Labrum and three apiece from Burton and Underwood en route to out blocking the Chanticleers 7-3. Memphis held CCU to .054 and .114 hitting in games two and three, respectively.

Tigers Drop Season Opener...Memphis' 3-1 loss to Louisville snapped a four-year string in which the Tigers opened the season with a win. With a 19-18 all-time mark in season openers, Memphis had won four consecutive season openers and is now 9-3 in 12 years under Carrie Yerty. The Tiger's last season-opening loss came in 2002, when they lost to Georgia State 3-1.

And Then There Were Two...Already the longest tenured coach in Memphis volleyball history, Head Coach Carrie Yerty is chasing another milestone to add to her list of accomplishments. Yerty needs just two wins to become the all-time winningest coach in Memphis history. With 211 career coaching wins, Yerty trails former coach Diane Hale, who posted 212 wins in a nine-year stint at Memphis. Under Yerty, the Tigers have won a combined 100 matches over the last four seasons and have finished .500 or better in each of the last six campaigns.

Liford Moves Into 13th On Memphis' All-Time Kills List...With her seventh kill of the night against Coastal Carolina, senior Ashley Liford eclipsed the 1,100-kill milestone. She later moved into 13th on Memphis's all-time kills list when she put down her 11th kill of the night. She finished the night with a match-high 17 kills.

Redshirts Ready for Action...After sitting out the 2006 season, Memphis has a trio of redshirt freshmen that are looking to make their way into the Tiger's lineup in 2007. Freshman Christine Bach came in as a setter, but had a steller first weekend as the Tiger's starting libero. Katlin Inglish saw playing time on the outside, while Emily Underwood made her mark in the middle with four blocks, three of which came in the sweep of Coastal Carolina.

Next to 1,000...Senior middle blocker Shelby Burton looks to become the 20th Memphis volleyball player to reach the 1,000-kill milestone. Burton has put down 39 kills in 2007 and is just 21 kills shy of the benchmark accomplishment. The San Antonio native, hammered 513 kills as a junior and averages 313 kills per year.

Not Everybody's All-American..Included in Memphis' eight returning letterwinners from 2006 are AVCA All-Americans Shelby Burton and Laura Côté. Burton ranked second in the league and fifth in the nation in hitting efficiency with a .413 clip last year. She also ranked at 24th in the NCAA in aces per game, landing a C-USA best 0.57 per game. Côté, who dished out 1,692 assists in 2006, led Conference USA and ranked 28th in the nation with a 13.02 assists per game average.

Frosh Camp...Tiger freshmen Kelsey Labrum and Becky Shaffer performed well in their first tastes of collegiate action last weekend. Labrum downed 18 kills, including Memphis' first kill of the year. She also added seven digs, seven blocks and a pair of aces. Shaffer made 20 digs (2.0 digs/game) in the Tigers' back row.

Moving' On Up...Junior setter Laura Côté continues to climb the University of Memphis assists ladder and already ranks third all-time at Memphis and 15th in Conference USA with 3,284 assists in two-plus seasons. She dished out 1,692 assists a year after setting the Tiger's freshman record for assists in 2005 with 1,451.

Double Duty...Over the past five years, the Tiger volleyball team has experienced success both on the court and in the classroom. The 2007-08 team was no exception as they earned the C-USA Sports Academic Award. The Tiger spikers were one of just 56 Division I volleyball programs to receive the Game Plan/AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2006-2007 season. Yerty's bunch logged a 3.485 cumulative GPA for the 2005-06 school year, including a 3.68 GPA in the spring semester. 12 of the 15 student-athletes finished with a 3.5 of higher and seven turned in a perfect 4.0. The 3.68 spring GPA is the highest grade-point finish by any team in the history of Memphis athletics.

Just Win...Memphis has done just that since the inception of its volleyball program. It has been especially successful over the last four years under Carrie Yerty. Over the past four seasons, Yerty and her Tigers have put together over 100 wins, including 30 wins in 2003 and 27 victories in 2004 and 2006 each. The program came into the 2007 season ranked as the nation's 23rd winningest volleyball program with 735 wins.

Gorman Makes a Fresh New Start...After two years on the hardwood for the Lady Tiger basketball team, Tiger defensive specialist Gresh Gorman made the decision to switch sports and play volleyball. Gorman, who started in 25 (all as a sophomore) of the 54 games she appeared in with the Lady Tigers, totaled 165 points (3.1pts/g), 90 rebounds, 53 assists, 36 steals and one blocked shot, She played in just three games as a junior, before leaving the team for personal reasons.