Arizona Western College is proud to announce that the AWC Volleyball team has earned a #9 national ranking in the NJCAA Preseason Volleyball Poll released late yesterday. It is the fifth time in the last seven years that the NJCAA pollsters have placed AWC in the first national volleyball poll of the season, and it’s the first national ranking that the team has enjoyed since last year’s preseason national poll when they were ranked 18th. The #9 national ranking is the highest mark that the Lady Mats have reached on the NJCAA Poll since November 2nd, 2004, when the team finished the year ranked 4th in the nation.
The Top 10 national ranking continues to ratchet up the expectations for the Lady Matadors, but it’s not something they didn’t necessarily expect… for several reasons. First, while they may have lost their head coach of the last two seasons, Jason Smith, to an NCAA Division I coaching job at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Smith’s replacement, Karen Sitkiewicz, led a Phoenix College team that wasn’t even ranked in the NJCAA DII Preseason Poll last summer to the Region I DII Championship and the NJCAA DII Tournament Semifinals last November. Second, the team hung their 8th straight Region I Championship banner on the wall last November. Third, the squad has come within just a few points of an NJCAA Division I Tournament each of the last four seasons, and reached the national tournament each of the four seasons prior to that. Fourth, the 2007 ACCAC Volleyball Player of the Year runner-up, Brazilian talent Luci Toazzi, returns to lead the Lady Matadors in 2008. Finally, Toazzi will have plenty of help to grab for consecutive Region I title #9, including returning setter Kimee Clark and incoming and highly touted freshmen Tehani-Eilika Hill and Kristin Loveland.
The Lady Matadors’ new head coach is obviously pleased about the respect her program has been given by the national pollsters with this honor, but isn’t about to let it cloud her players’ focus as they prepare for their 2008 regular season opener August 22nd at Glendale. “It’s a great honor, and there’s a lot of talent on this team, but those aren’t what brings championships,” remarked Sitkiewicz. “This is a very strong conference-top to bottom-and this ranking is a bulls-eye that opponents will look to attack every night now. Our squad has to be thinking about every game individually, put the building blocks together, and make it happen. That’s what we’re working to do right now in the preseason.” The Lady Matadors will spend their first week of the season on the road before making their home debut Friday, August 29th against Eastern Arizona College in a rematch of last year’s Region I Finals. First serve is at 7PM at ‘The House’ on the AWC campus. Ticket and game information can be obtained by accessing the AWC Athletics website http://www.azwestern.edu/student_services/athletics/womens_volleyball/index.html
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