University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
UNC Asheville Hosts Volleyball Classic This Weekend
08.30.2007 | Women's Volleyball
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The third annual UNC Asheville Volleyball Classic will be held at Justice Center this weekend as the Bulldogs play three home matches. It will be the first time Asheville has played a home match this year.
UNC Asheville begins play in the tourney Friday night when it hosts mountain rival Western Carolina starting at 7 p.m. The tournament continues on Saturday with four matches. The Bulldogs square off against Kennesaw State at 10:30 a.m. and finish up the tournament with match against USC Upstate at 6 p.m.
The other two matches on Saturday will have USC Upstate taking on Western Carolina at 1 p.m., followed by Kennesaw State and Western Carolina competing at 3:30 p.m. Kennesaw State and USC Upstate won't play because they are in the same conference.
UNC Asheville had a tough opening weekend at Florida State as the Bulldogs lost all three matches in the FSU Tourney to fall to 0-3 on the season. Asheville head coach Julie Torbett knew it would be a tough tournament and the opponents would be quite good.
"I knew it would be hard to win a match at this tournament," stated Torbett. "We played three great opponents in Texas Christian, Florida State and Florida Gulf Coast. All three of those teams are potential NCAA Tournament clubs.
"We opened with that kind of tournament to prepare us for the rest of the season," added Torbett. "Playing those kinds of teams makes us better."
However, Torbett still wants to see her team play better. There's one big area for Asheville to improve on this weekend.
"Our ball-handling needs to get better and it needs to start right away," declared Torbett. "We can't accomplish very much if we don't handle the ball better."
UNC Asheville hosts mountain rival Western Carolina for the first time since the 2005 season.
"Western Carolina is much improved from last season," admitted Torbett. "I have been very impressed with what I've seen from them. We expect a very tough match against them Friday night. We're going to have play better than we did last weekend."
