Griz open season in Dallas

The Montana volleyball team will open its season this week when the Grizzlies play three matches in two days at the SMU Doubletree Invitational in Dallas, Texas.

Montana will open with SMU on Friday at 11:30 a.m. (MT) before facing Arkansas-Little Rock at 3:30 p.m. (MT). On Saturday the Grizzlies will play Texas-San Antonio at 11 a.m. (MT).

Coverage: All three matches can be tracked through live stats. Links can be found at gogriz.com.

Upcoming: Montana will host Gonzaga at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 3, at the West Auxiliary Gym in the Grizzlies' only match next week. Montana will follow with tournaments at Iowa State and Morehead State before opening Big Sky Conference play at home against Eastern Washington on Sept. 22.

Tournament preview: Second-year Montana coach Brian Doyon will travel to Dallas with a small group of 10 players, eight of whom will be underclassmen. Five will be playing their first matches in a Griz uniform. And it would be a tough tournament were Doyon bringing an experienced squad.

Host SMU won 27 matches last year and the American Athletic Conference championship on its way to the NCAA tournament. There will be a banner hanging before the Mustangs' match on Friday night, and the players will receive their championship rings after SMU's match on Saturday afternoon.

Arkansas-Little Rock went 14-14 last year but returns five starters, and Texas-San Antonio is coming off a 24-win season, the Roadrunners' sixth-consecutive season with 20-plus victories. Five starters return for UTSA.

Texas-San Antonio was picked second behind Western Kentucky in the Conference USA preseason poll, SMU was picked third behind Cincinnati and Temple in the AAC preseason poll, and Arkansas-Little Rock was picked fourth in the West Division of the Sun Belt Conference preseason poll.

"This is our first test, and it's going to be a tough test. It's going to be tough competition," said Doyon, whose team held an intra-squad scrimmage Saturday evening.

"What I'm hoping is that we are able to do what we did in the scrimmage and play the system we want to play. Whether we make the play or not, are we in the right place? Are we doing the things we're supposed to be doing system-wise? That's what I'm hoping we can do really well this weekend."

Montana, picked 12th out of 12 teams in the Big Sky Conference preseason coaches' poll, will be led by a pair of seniors, setter Raegan Lindsey and libero Sadie Ahearn.

Sophomore outside hitters Lia Gaogao, Mykaela Hammer and Cassie Laramee are back, though Hammer could see a position change this weekend based on personnel needs.

Making their Montana debuts will be sophomore Alexis Urbach, a transfer from UC Riverside, sophomore middle blocker Katie Peck and true freshmen Missy Huddleston, an outside hitter, Karlee Robison, a defensive specialist, and Ashley Watkins, a 6-foot setter who can also hit.

"The team has been responding really well to the things we're teaching and working on. I saw a lot of things at the scrimmage that led me to believe that some of the things are starting to stick. They're starting to figure some things out," said Doyon.

"All of the new athletes are coming in having done something completely different than what we're doing. Breaking those habits is a process. Can we stick to our system instead of going 9-1-1 and going back to what we normally do? If we get it right most of the time this weekend, I'll be really excited."

Around the Big Sky Conference: Northern Colorado, picked second in the Big Sky preseason poll, North Dakota, picked third, and Portland State, picked seventh, are the only league teams playing at home this weekend.

The other nine teams are playing at road tournaments, from Starkville, Miss. (Eastern Washington) to Berkeley, Calif. (Southern Utah). Sacramento State is playing just 20 miles from where Montana opens, at Texas-Arlington's tournament.

Defending Big Sky champion and 2016 preseason favorite Northern Arizona opens at Temple's tournament in Philadelphia.

Inside the numbers:

* Doyon enters the 2016 season with a record at Montana of 8-20. The Grizzlies finished 10th in the Big Sky Conference last fall with a league mark of 4-12, though they closed the season winning four of their last nine matches.

* Montana returns players who totaled just 277 of its 1,381 kills last season, with Gaogao recording most of those with 168.

* Key personnel losses from last season include outside hitter Hannah Sackett, who was voted first-team All-Big Sky after ranking second in the league in kills (4.32/s), and middle blocker Capri Richardson, second-team All-Big Sky as a junior, who led the team in both hitting (.309) and blocks (91) last year.

* Montana has played all three of this week's opponents before. The Grizzlies are 0-2 against SMU, losing in Dallas in straight sets in 2008 and at home in five sets in 2009. Montana has three times swept Arkansas-Little Rock, in 1995, 1997 and 2010, and the Grizzlies won at UTSA in straight sets in 1989.

* Lindsey enters her senior season with 1,336 career assists after totaling 840 last year. She needs just 356 to crack the Montana career top 10.

* Ahearn, who had more digs as a junior (410) than she had as a freshman (189) and sophomore (195) combined, enters her final season with 794. She would have to reach 1,123 to make her way into the top 10 and into the record book.

* Montana opened 2-0 last year, with victories over Air Force and Northeastern at Air Force's tournament in Colorado Springs.

* Urbach averaged 2.16 kills last season on UC Riverside's team that went 10-19 and finished seventh in the Big West at 5-11. The Bend, Ore., native had a season-high 18 kills on .277 hitting in a five-set home win over Cal State Fullerton.

* On Doyon's staff are seventh-year assistant Allison Lawrence and first-year assistant Giedre Tarnauskaite, who spent the last two seasons at Pacific (Ore.) University.

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Players Mentioned

Sadie Ahearn

Mykaela Hammer

Missy Huddleston

Cassie Laramee

Raegan Lindsey

Katie Peck

Capri Richardson

Karlee Robison

Hannah Sackett

Alexis Urbach

Ashley Watkins

University of Montana Athletics