Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Volleyball Opens 2004 Season This Weekend In New Orleans
09/01/2004 | 12:00:00 | Women's Volleyball
Sept. 1, 2004
By Lou Antoine
SIUSalukis.com
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CARBONDALE, Ill. - Southern Illinois' three upperclassmen and 12 freshmen and sophomores will open the 2004 volleyball season this weekend with a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. The Salukis will compete in the Memorial Trosclair Tournament hosted by Tulane University on Sept. 3-4 at Fogelman Arena. In addition to Tulane (25-7 in 2003), SIU's young squad will face 2003 NCAA Tournament participant Nicholls State (18-15), as well as Georgetown (9-19), in a tournament that will provide an early barometer of how much the youngsters have improved from last year's 7-23 campaign. "Nicholls State was an NCAA Tournament team last year and Tulane easily could have been," said SIU head coach Sonya Locke. "We'll see how much we've improved over last year. We want to win two of the three tournaments we play this season and this will be our first chance to see our team in competition." Locke feels the difference in 2004 will be the play of her team's defense and how consistently the team can play defense at a high level. "If we play defense well, we will win matches. The key to this tournament and our season will be how well we play defense on a consistent basis," Locke added. SIU returns five starters and nine athletes that started a match in 2003. The young group opens play on Friday against Georgetown at 4:30 p.m. and will face Tulane at 1 p.m. and Nicholls State at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
