With the summer ending and school just around the corner, that means one thing: the beginning of the NCAA volleyball season.
The defending MAAC Champions will begin their 2023 campaign by going to Blacksburg, Virginia to participate in the Hokie Invitational. This past offseason Kyle Robinson and Katie Urycki recruited four players to fill in the three that they lost from last season.
Robinson will still have to fill the hole of middle blocker Nicole Legg. Last season, she had the third-highest service aces on the team with 34 and the Bobcats will need to find her replacement. I believe that the team should look to Lexi Morse to help out in the front of the net as she finished second in blocks behind Legg.
I think the pickup of Turkish sophomore middle blocker Tuana Turhan will also be a key addition. She had 151 blocks and 35 service aces as a first-year at Vincennes University while leading the team to a NJCAA D1 Region 24 Championship. I believe that if Turhan is able to put up numbers like she did last season for the Trailblazers, she could make the All-MAAC Rookie Team and possibly be named MAAC Rookie of the Year.
Quinnipiac will begin the Hokie Invitational by playing the Furman Paladins this Friday at 10 a.m. Last season, the Paladins went on a similar run to Quinnipiac by making it to the conference championship as a low seed. However, the team consists of mainly underclassmen who are not familiar with playing with one another. In contrast, Quinnipiac’s volleyball squad still has the same weapons that helped them win the MAAC last season, so I see the Bobcats taking the first game of the invitational in four sets.
The second game of the invitational will be later that day against the host school, the Virginia Tech Hokies. Even though the Hokies are projected to finish last in the ACC this season, they should be able to handle the Bobcats without a problem. The only thing that Quinnipiac has going for them is they have experience with playing a Power 5 conference team since they had to take on a highly ranked Wisconsin Badgers team that had some of the tallest players in the country. However, I think the Hokies will be too much for Quinnipiac and they will hand the Bobcats their first loss of the 2023 season.
As the team enters the final game of the tournament, the Bobcats will be taking on the Morgan State Bears out of the MEAC conference. The Bears are projected to finish 7th in the MEAC and are 1-2 all-time against Quinnipiac with the most recent match coming in 2019 where the Bobcats swept the match in three sets. I believe Quinnipiac will be able to get the job done again with their diversity in attack at the net and the new middle blockers upfront. The combination of the two will make it difficult for the Bears to counter and Quinnipiac will start off strong with a 2-1 record on the year.
