USD Volleyball 2008

Diego State Invitational where they will battle Albany, UC Irvine and their heated cross-town rival San Diego State. Following that tournament, the Toreros will get tested early to see where they stand on the national scene as they head to Los Angeles for the Holiday Inn CenterTrojan lnvitational,where they will face Hofstra, Oklahoma and conclude the Tournament with a 6:30 p.m. match against the host Trojans of USC on September 6. USD will then get to begin their home schedule with the USD Tournament. Teams fea– tured in this tournament will be Cal State Ful– lerton, Southern Mississippi and a very strong Texas A&M squad. The Toreros will have one more big chal– lenge to face before starting their conference slate, and that will be the University of Wash– ington tournament, where USD will face Seattle University and the host Huskies. San Diego will then begin their conference title defense at home on Oct. 2 against Gonzaga and will aim to make it a three-peat for confer– ence champions. A big change in collegiate volleyball this season will be the scoring change, from a 30- point game to a 25-point game. According to the NCAA rules committee, contests that were played to 30 points seemed to show a decrease in the intensity during the middle of those sets. The rules committee cited a desire to increase player focus and fan excitement as the major reason for the change. The fifth game still will be played to 15 points.All five games will still be played in a rally-scoring format. "I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the 25-point games yet or not. I think it is pretty short and it's going to take a lot of getting used to early on," stated Petrie. "Obviously, the intensity is going to have to be raised a lot early, but I'm not sure the best team is always going to win ."

men Jillian Wolpman and Sarah Schatzman. Wolpman comes to USD after a stand-out high school career at San Marcos High School as well as a strong career with the Austin Juniors Volley– ball club team. She was a USAV A2 Junior Na– tional Team selectee in 2008, a USAV A2 Youth National Team Participant in 2006 and was a USAV A2 High Performance Select Participant in 2005 . Schatzman comes to San Diego from the Bay Area and had a stellar career at Presentation High School. As a senior was named first-team All-Central Coast Section, was named first-team All-West Catholic Athletic League and first– team All-San Jose Mercury News. As a senior, Schatzman was named a Prep Volleyball Senior Ace (top-150) and was a US Army Reserve Schol– ar Athlete award winner. On the right side, the Toreros will welcome back AII-WCC Freshman Team honoree Ali Troost. As a freshman , Troost burst onto the scene and broke into the starting line-up early on and never left. Troost was a big part of a bal– anced offensive attack in 2007, as she recorded 263 kills, while hitting at a .244 clip. Returning at libero is AII -WCC honorable mention honoree Andrea Csaszi. As a sopho– more, Csaszi had a break-out type of season as she finished with 530 digs, the second best sin– gle-season total in program history. Csaszi aver– aged 4.77 digs per game a year ago, which was second best in the conference. Backing up Csaszi will be junior Kayleen Webster. A year ago, Webster appeared in 56 games and recorded 59 digs. Finally the last returner for the Toreros will be four-year senior Breanne Ogden. Ogden has been used in the past as a serving specialist, has also seen time on the floor as a libero and the coaching staff is thrilled to have her versatility back for one more year. The coaches can see Od– gen vying for time in the back row this season. "Bree has strong ball control skills, can pass well and is going to be a huge leader for this team," stated Petrie. "She knows what we are looking for from our seniors and I think she will be able to steer this team." With all of this talent, coach Petrie has put together a very demanding non-conference schedule in order to get the Toreros ready for the very strong WCC schedule and for the NCAA Tournament. San Diego will open its season at the San

2008 WCC Preseason Coaches Poll

1. SAN DIEGO - 56 (3) 2. Pepperdine - 55 (3) 3. Santa Clara - 53 (1) 4. Saint Mary's - 34 (1) San Francisco - 34 6. Loyola Marymount - 29 7. Gonzaga - 18 8. Portland - 9