Arizona Western College has announced that the 2008 AWC Volleyball schedule has been released. The release of the schedule happens exactly one month before the 2008 Lady Matadors take the practice court August 4th in preparation to defend their 8th straight Region I title under new interim head coach Karen Sitkiewicz.
Sitkiewicz and the Lady Matadors will spend most of the first month of the season away from the friendly confines of ‘The House’ on the campus of AWC, and will kick off their 2008 campaign with three games in the Phoenix area. The 2008 season starts against the Glendale Lady Gauchos in the Phoenix area on Friday, August 22nd. The Lady Mats will then face Scottsdale the next evening and then South Mountain Community College on August 27th-both in Phoenix. The home fans will get their first chance to witness the start of the Karen Sitkiewicz Era at AWC on Friday afternoon, August 29th, when the Eastern Arizona Lady Gila Monsters will come to ‘The House’ for a rematch of last year’s Region I Finals. After that emotional evening, the Lady Mats will take the floor at ‘The House’ the very next day, August 30th, for another intense matchup against the team that Sitkiewicz took to the NJCAA Division II Tournament Semifinals a year ago, the Phoenix College Lady Bears. Both of those games will be special 5PM starting times each day.
The Matadors will kick off the month of September with a home game on Wednesday night, September 3rd against the Mesa Thunderbirds, then won’t see their home floor again for three weeks. They’ll spend the next two weekends facing some of the top volleyball programs in the region and the nation as part of the Salt Lake Community College Tournament September 5th and 6th (in Las Vegas, Nevada) and the Valley of the Sun Tournament September 11th through the 13th (in Scottsdale). The Lady Mats will then have road conference contests against defending Region I DII Champion Phoenix College (September 17th) and ’06 NJCAA DII Tournament runners-up Chandler-Gilbert (September 19th) before returning home for a four-game homestand. They’ll wind up the month of September with home matches against Pima (September 24th), Glendale (September 26th) and a special 2PM Saturday matinee game against Yavapai on September 27th.
The four-game homestand kicks off play for October as the Lady Matadors host South Mountain Community College on Wednesday night, October 1st. However, after that, all but one of the remaining games will be away from home. The Lady Mats hit the road for key conference contests against Eastern Arizona (October 3rd) and Mesa (October 8th) before making their longest road trip of the season to Liberal, Kansas, where they’ll participate in the Seward County Invitational Tournament for the second straight year October 10th and 11th. After heading to Prescott to face Yavapai on October 18th, the Mats come home for their final regular season home game against Chandler-Gilbert on Wednesday night, October 22nd. The 2008 regular season schedule ends for the Matadors in Tucson against Pima Community College on Friday night, October 24th. All of the Lady Matadors’ home conference games start at 7PM-except for the three games mentioned above (August 29th & 30th and September 27th).
The Lady Matadors will be shooting for their 9th straight Region I Championship Game, which will be played Thursday, October 30th, at a site and time to be determined. The Lady Matadors finished the 2007 regular season with a 26-9 overall mark and a 16-2 conference record, which was good enough to give them a share of the ACCAC Regular Season title (along with Phoenix College) for the first time since 2004. The Lady Matadors then went to win the Region I title over Eastern Arizona before falling to Salt Lake Community College in the District I Championship in Salt Lake City, Utah.
