Volleyball opens 2017 season Friday at SJSU/USF Tournament

Friday, August 25

San Jose, CA

4:30 PM

Fresno State

Utah Valley

Volleyball opens 2017 season Friday at SJSU/USF Tournament

8/24/2017 10:04:00 AM | Women's Volleyball

Complete Weekly Notes (PDF)

By: Andrew Tomsky / Assistant Director of Communications

SJSU/USF Tournament vs. Utah Valley/San Francisco/Pepperdine
Aug. 25-26, 2017 • vs. UVU at San Jose State (Friday) • vs. USF/Pep at San Francisco (Saturday)
Video: Mountain West Network (Friday) • TheW.TV (Saturday vs USF)
Live: Live Stats on gobulldogs.com • Live Updates on Twitter (@FresnoStateVB)
Series History: (UVU) UVU leads 2-0 • (USF) Fresno State leads 25-4 • (PEP) Pep leads 5-1
Next Up: vs. Fresno Pacific (Exhibition) • Tuesday, Aug. 29 • 7:00 PM • Save Mart Center

2017 Openers
• Fresno State began practice on Aug. 8 and played its annual alumnae match on Aug. 19 in the 17 days prior to the season opener.
• The team enters the 2017 season with five returning starters and eight returning letterwinners from a 2016 team that record the program's third winning season in the last five years.
• The Bulldogs are looking to build on a 15-14 record from a year ago in which the team was 9-2 in non-conference matches before a 6-12 record in Mountain West play.

Scouting the Tournament
• Fresno State has not played any of its three opponents in the SJSU/USF Tournament in nearly five years, having faced Utah Valley most recently in 2012.
• A member of the WAC, Utah Valley tied for second in the league with a 10-4 conference record and reached the WAC Tournament championship match last year. Head coach Sam Atoa was the WAC Coach of the Year and the team returns three all-WAC selections.
• San Francisco is under new leadership under Coach Frank Lavrisha in 2017 after a 4-27 record a year ago. The Dons started 3-1 but went 1-26 over the remainder of the season, losing 22 straight matches to end the year with an 0-18 record in West Coast Conference play.
• The 'Dogs will face Pepperdine for the first time since 2001. The Waves finished 13-17 overall and 7-11 in the WCC last year, ending the season with a home upset of No. 11 San Diego.
• In the two-site tournament Pepperdine will also face Utah Valley and San Jose State in San Jose, Utah Valley will play Nevada in San Francisco, and the Dons will also host San Jose State and Nevada as three total MW teams are in the tournament but will not face each other until later this season in conference play.

Starting Strong
• The Bulldogs will look to replicate their early season success in the 2016 season in which the team started 5-0 and had a 9-2 non-conference mark.
• In 2016 Fresno State went undefeated to win both the Boston College Invitational and Incarnate Word Invitational.
• Over 11 non-conference matches the squad had six 3-0 sweeps while hitting .257 as a team and averaging 13.00 kills, 2.21 service aces, 12.36 digs, and 2.08 blocks per set.

Aces Aplenty
• The 2016 Bulldogs ranked among the best serving teams in the nation, leading the Mountain West and ranking 15th in NCAA Div. I averaging 1.67 service aces per set.
• The team's 180 total aces, which were 27th most in Div. I, were the most for the program since the 2002 season.

Juniority
• Fresno State's 2017 roster features nine juniors among 15 total student-athletes.
• The junior class accounts for nearly two-thirds of the roster while no other class has more than three members.
• Among the nine juniors are five returning players and four newcomers, as all four of the team's new transfers this year joined the program as juniors.

Super Server
• Senior Jacqueline Hutcheson led the Mountain West and ranked ninth in all of NCAA Div. I with 53 service aces last season.
• No other Mountain West player had more than 40 aces while her 0.49 aces per set ranked 11th in the nation and was 0.14 better than any other MW athlete.
• The 0.49 aces per set ranked fifth most in a season in program history and the 53 total aces tied for seventh, with both marks the best by a Bulldog since the 1995 season.

Alumnae Match
• Fresno State kicked off its 2017 season with the annual Alumnae Match last Saturday, earning the victory at 3-1 in a 3-2 final against many star Bulldogs from previous seasons. The match was predetermined to go a full five sets.
• Junior Taylor Slover led all players in the match with 16 kills while also contributing eight digs and two blocks. Junior middle blocker Haile Watson tallied 10 kills and a team-high seven blocks while hitting .304 and sophomore Madelyn Halteman had a double-double with 52 assists and 14 digs along with three blocks. Senior Jacqueline Hutcheson recorded a team-high 17 digs.
• After the Alumnae took the first set, the 2017 team won the next three 26-24, 25-11, and 25-17.

Hardly at Home
• Thirteen of Fresno State's first 15 matches of the season will be played outside of Fresno.
• The team has eight road matches and five neutral site matches scheduled over the first month of the season with just two home dates prior to Sept. 28.
• The team has just one official home match prior to the star of conference play, against CSU Bakersfield on Sept. 5. The meeting with Fresno Pacific on Aug. 29 will be an exhibition.
• Eight of the team's 11 non-conference road matches will take place in California with just one flight trip to Portland.

Senior Leaders
• The Bulldogs will rely on their two seniors, libero Jacqueline Hutcheson and middle blocker Lauren Torres, to lead the team.
• In addition to her serving acumen Hutcheson also averaged 1.83 digs per set last season and was one of just three 'Dogs to play in all 108 sets.
• Torres started 25 matches last year and ranked second on the team in points and blocks while averaging 1.67 kills per set. She was one of seven Bulldogs to top 100 kills during the 2016 season.

Her First Decade
• Bulldog head coach Lauren Netherby-Sewell is in her 10th season leading the program.
• She is the third coach in program history to complete a decade at the helm, joining Leilani Overstreet (20 seasons) and Lindy Vivas (14 seasons) in that elite company.
• Netherby-Sewell is in her 13th season overall as a head coach as she led Hofstra for two seasons before joining the Bulldogs in 2008.

In With the New
• Fresno State has six newcomers on its 2017 roster to go with nine returning members.
• Among the new additions are four transfers, three of which (Karina Felipe, Pumehana Nedlic, and Emily Dzubak) came from junior colleges and one (Jessica Gilbert) who transferred from Div. I Eastern Washington.
• The team also has two true freshmen, Sydney Lostumo and Reagan Leonard, who both joined the program from the Phoenix, Ariz. metropolitan area.
• Gilbert has previously played with junior Haile Watson, who was also at Eastern Washington in 2015.

Preseason Prognostication
• The Mountain West coaches voted Fresno State to finish 10th in the preseason conference poll. The Bulldogs earned 29 points in the poll, coming in well ahead of Air Force (14).
• Colorado State received eight first place votes and 98 total points to be picked to win the league ahead of defending champion Boise State, which garnered three first-place votes and 93 points to be selected second.

On the Global Stage
• Junior Haile Watson represented the Bulldogs as a member of the Mountain West All-Star team at the European Global Challenge in July in Croatia.
• Watson helped lead the MW team to the championship match, giving the conference its best finish in the four years it has fielded a team. The squad earned wins over European pro teams as well as other teams comprised of US student-athletes before falling to the USA Volleyball College National Team in the final.
• Watson is one of two current Bulldogs that have competed in the tournament as junior Jessica Gilbert played in the 2015 and 2016 editions while at Eastern Washington.

100 Club
• The Bulldogs had seven players record 100 kills last year for the first time since the 2011 season. The team had five 100-kill players in 2015.
• Fresno State's top two in kills in 2016, Aleisha Coates and Carly Scarbrough, are both departed but the five others to top 100 kills return in 2017.

Welcome Back
• Fresno State welcomed back former Bulldog Holly Franks as the team's director of operations entering the 2017 season.
• A former 'Dog who was named the Mountain West Newcomer of the Year in 2013, Franks came back to Fresno State after spending two seasons as the head coach at Porterville College in Porterville, Calif.
• Franks, who played one season with the Bulldogs after transferring from Cal Poly, played a year internationally for Svedala Volley in Sweden in 2014 before returning to coach at Porterville.

Doubling Up
• The Bulldogs face two of their non-conference opponents twice, facing both San Francisco and CSU Bakersfield two times among the 13 non-conference matches.
• Fresno State plays at San Francisco twice (Aug. 25 and Sept. 9) and has a home-and-home with CSU Bakersfield on consecutive Tuesdays (Sept. 5 and Sept. 12).
• The 'Dogs will also play two matches this season in Spartan Gym at San Jose State, playing Utah Valley in a neutral site match on Aug. 25 before facing the Spartans there on Oct. 26.

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