Eagles Volleyball Set For Match-Ups With Highly Ranked Foes
(Posted October 21, 2005)
a href="http://athletics.juniata.edu/wvolleyball/results/2005Guisler.html"> Click here for complete Guisler schedule and results
Juniata, currently ranked second in the nation, will take on a handful of ranked teams this Friday and Saturday when its hosts the Wid Guisler Invitational. New York University, Eastern University, Franklin & Marshal and Carnegie Mellon will all travel to Huntingdon for the round-robin style tournament.
The tournament is Juniata's lone home tournament of the season and represents four of Juniata's six non-conference home matches this season.
The field features three nationally-ranked teams, as well as three of the top teams in the Mid-Atlantic Region, so several of the matches could be previews of NCAA Tournament contests.
Play will get underway Friday at 4:00, when Juniata, with a record of 24-1 takes on F&M, ranked fifth in the region. Later that evening, at 8:00, Juniata will match-up with NYU. The Violets are currently ranked fourth in the nation. The match will mark the first meeting between the two teams since Juniata defeated NYU in the NCAA semifinals last season, en route to the Eagles' national championship.
On Saturday morning, Juniata will kick thins off with an 11:00 match against Carnegie Mellon, who comes to the tournament with a record of 16-8. The final game of the day will be the Juniata-Eastern showdown. Juniata has knocked Eastern, the 19th ranked team in the country, out of the national tournament in each of the past two seasons, so Eastern should have revenge on its mind as well.
The matches against NYU and Eastern will be Juniata's sixth and seventh contests of the season against nationally ranked opponents. The Eagles are currently 4-1 against such opponents, with the lone loss coming at the hands of the number-one ranked team in the nation, Washington University. The Eagles have already knocked off ranked opponents Trinity, Wittenberg, and La Verne twice already this season.
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Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.