George Washington University Athletics
George Washington University
Toledo
Volleyball Ventures to Illinois for CEFCU Invitational
8/30/2018 10:44:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Colonials to square off with Toledo, Western Illinois, and host Bradley
Bella Bowman
Fr. || 5-7 || L
Louisville, Ky.
Bowman shined in GW's opening weekend, serving as the libero in all seven sets for the Colonials. After getting her feet wet with 11 digs on Friday against Howard, Bowman notched 31 digs in GW's four-set contest against American.
ABOUT LAST WEEKEND: GW showed improvement from set-to-set despite falling in a pair of intra-city matches against Howard (0-3) and American (1-3). The Colonials were slowed by 27 errors in each of the two matches and hit .094 as a team in the weekend, but GW was competitive in nearly every set against the pair of defending conference champions, registering at least 20 points in five of the seven sets.
ACROSS THE NET: The Buff & Blue will face three teams this weekend of which they have little experience against. GW has only faced one of the teams (Western Illinois) since the turn of the century and has squared off with Toledo, WIU, and Bradley just a combined nine times.
Toledo, under first-year head coach Jason Oliver, lost all three of its matches at the Golden Dome Invitational last weekend to Northern Kentucky, Notre Dame, and Weber State. Senior libero Maurissa Leonard is the reigning MAC West Defensive Player of the Week.
Western Illinois is also under a first-year head coach in Ben Staupe. The Leathernecks hosted a tournament to begin their campaign and defeated Fairleigh Dickinson before suffering setbacks against Tennessee Tech and Evansville.
Bradley opened its season by going 2-1 at the Eagle Challenge in Morehead, Ky., knocking off Hampton and St. Francis (NY) while falling to the host, Morehead State. The Braves were projected to finish seventh in the preseason Missouri Valley poll.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE: Junior Skylar Iott notched the first double-double of her season with a 20-kill, 12-dig effort on Saturday against American. It was Iott's third career double-double (one each as a freshman and sophomore), but the first time she's ever recorded a double-double with 20-plus kills. The 20 kills marked the second-most of the junior's career (25 at Seton Hall, Sept. 2. 2016).
NOT TO BE OUTDONE: Fellow junior Jaimeson Lee also registered her first double-double of the year against the Eagles Saturday with 43 assists and 14 digs. Lee led GW with 11 double-doubles last year and now has 14 such instances in her career. The 43 assists were the fourth-most for Lee in a single match in her career.
COMING UP: This weekend is the first of two straight road tournaments for the Colonials, who will travel to Brooklyn, N.Y. next weekend for matchups with Holy Cross, South Florida, and LIU Brooklyn.
