San Marcos Daily Record

September 7, 2007

CenturyTel Premier boasts a strong field

College Volleyball
From staff reports

Texas State volleyball's nonconference schedule continues this weekend with the annual CenturyTel Premier as the Bobcats open against Houston in the four team, round-robin style tournament.

The Bobcats and Cougars face off at noon in the tournament’s second match on Friday. Cal State-Fullerton and Missouri face each other at 10 a.m. to lead a quadruple-header of volleyball action. Missouri will then face Houston at 5 p.m. before the Bobcats conclude day one action against Cal State-Fullerton at 7 p.m.

The Titans open day two action with a noon match against Houston before Texas State concludes the weekend with a 2 p.m. start against Missouri.

Texas State's match against Houston features two interesting storylines. Bobcat Head Coach Karen Chisum sits at 633 career wins, one of only 16 active head coaches with 600 career victories. Houston's Bill Walton is another, currently sitting at 628.

Texas State freshman Melinda Cave will also find a familiar opponent wearing a Houston jersey, as her older sister Kinsey plays for the Cougars. Both players chose schools in Texas despite hailing from California and are the only players from the Golden State on each team's roster.

Just like Texas State's trip to North Texas last weekend, the CenturyTel Premier provides a mix of old and new opponents for the Bobcats. Texas State will play in its second straight tournament against an opponent from Missouri the Bobcats have never played, while Cal State-Fullerton's lone meeting with the Bobcats was a 3-2 Titan win during the 2004 season. However, Texas State and North Texas have played 26 times in all, with the 'Cats holding a 20-4-2 series lead. UNT knocked off Texas State in three games when the two teams last squared off at the 2006 CenturyTel Premier in San Marcos.

Emily Jones has come up huge in the middle for Texas State, tallying at least 11 kills in each of the last four matches and a career-high 19 in Tuesday's loss to Texas A&M. The Bobcats took game two against the Aggies in front of a huge home crowd, but eventually fell 3-1.

The loss dropped Texas State to 2-3 overall on the year. Jones leads the team in kills with 66 while Lawrencia Brown has 58 for per game averages of 3.47 and 3.05 respectively. Shelbi Irvin averages 8.07 assists per game, while defensively Jones’ 29 blocks leads the team and Kacey Wimpy averages 4.11 digs per game.

Cal State-Fullerton comes to San Marcos for the first time, sporting a 3-3 record. The Titans have losses to Stony Brook, Boise State and No. 19 Santa Clara while defeating Portland State, Bowling Green and Southland Conference member UTSA.

Six Titan players average over 2.00 kills per game, led by Brittany Moore’s 3.75 mark. Julie Geissert adds a 12.00 assists per game average while a balanced defense has six players averaging at least 2.30 digs per game.

Houston will have little recovery for the CenturyTel Premier after a five game win over Cal State-Bakersfield on Wednesday and a match Thursday at UTSA. The Cougars snapped a three-game slide in beating UCSB, although two of the losses came against No. 7 Texas and No. 22 Kansas State while the other came at home against New Mexico State. Lucy Charuk led the Cougars with 21 kills in their win Wednesday to improve Houston to 2-3 overall.

Justine Parmer had 14 kills against UCSB and paces the offense with 4.92 kills per game and is joined by Hannah Sullivan's 2.83 per game mark.

Robin Fitzgerald averages 7.80 assists per game while defensively Amanda Carson leads the way with 3.54 digs per game.

Missouri looks to rebound after a tough 3-2 loss to Florida International last weekend as the Tigers sit at 3-2 despite outscoring their opponents in all five matches this season. In their loss to Ole Miss, Missouri outscored the Rebels by 14 total points for the match but still lost.

Julianna Klein and Na Yang each average over four kills a game to lead the Tiger offense, while Lei Wang averages 11.57 assists per game. Tatum Ailes has a 5.62 digs per game average to lead the defense along with three other players averaging over 2.20 digs per game while three Missouri players have at least 18 blocks on the year.