Griz open 2022 with free exhibition match vs. Carroll on Tuesday

While the 2022 volleyball season doesn't officially start until Friday, Griz fans will get a sneak peek on Tuesday, with Montana hosting an exhibition match against Carroll College. The match will begin at 6 p.m. and is free to the public.

While exhibition contests have been common for years in sports like basketball, they have been rare in volleyball until recently. The Grizzlies hosted North Dakota in an exhibition match in 2019, but aside from that, have relied on intrasquad scrimmages for preseason tune-ups.

Tuesday will not only be an opportunity for fans to see the Grizzlies in action for the first time, but for the team to line up across the net from a different opponent and try out a few different lineups and rotations before the season hits full swing over the weekend.

"Tomorrow will be the first time that we put on our jerseys and the first time we'll play in front of fans, so there are going to be those pre-game jitters. But I'm excited to see what type of competitor that environment brings out in us," head coach Allison Lawrence said. "We've been working on parts of our system that we felt we needed to improve on consistently in order to put us in contention for really big things this fall, and I'm excited to see what parts of our game show up when the pressure is at its highest and it's game time."

While Lawrence plans to test out various rotations on Tuesday, giving players and lineups different opportunities, the format for the match will be standard: a best-of-five match with the winner being the first team to capture three sets.

Gallery: (8-14-2022) VB: Preseason Practices

Carroll, an NAIA school from Helena, is a week ahead of Montana, having already played four matches. The Saints went 2-2 at the Big Sky Challenge last weekend, beating Vanguard and Dickinson State and losing to Eastern Oregon and Jamestown – two nationally ranked NAIA teams.

The Saints went 14-15 a season ago, but had previously posted at least seven consecutive winning seasons (Carroll's online records date back to 2014), including a 24-8 mark in 2016 that saw the Saints win the Frontier Conference regular-season and tournament titles and advance to the NAIA national tournament.

Carroll graduated just two seniors from its 2021 roster, returning the bulk of its lineup, including first-team All-Frontier Conference libero Julia Carr and the league's Freshman of the Year in middle hitter Elizabeth Heuiser. Also playing for Carroll is outside hitter Lexie Gleasman, who redshirted for the Griz in 2019. Gleasman averaged 2.06 kills per set in 2021, third on the Saints' roster.

Montana, meanwhile, had its best season since 2013 last year, winning 11 matches and again qualifying for the Big Sky Conference tournament. The Grizzlies return eight of the 10 players who earned starts in 2021, including 97.5 percent of the team's assists, 82.2 percent of its digs, 76.1 percent of its kills, 71.5 percent of its aces and 46.7 percent of its blocks.

"I think that the last two weeks have been really productive and have felt like a really big extension of spring, which I haven't felt every year," Lawrence said of her team's preseason training. "I think the returners came back ready to go and really took the reins, and it's been fun to watch them lead and push.

"Fall camp had a sense of calm in a way that I liked. Our work ethic and our enthusiasm and our commitment to Grit, Gratitude, Family is as high as it's ever been. We know who we are and where we're going, and we're really settled in that process and in a good place."

Following Tuesday's exhibition contest, Montana will turn its attention to the weekend, as it hosts a four-team, round-robin tournament. The tournament will feature four matches on Friday and two on Saturday, with the Grizzlies playing North Dakota (Friday at 10 a.m.), UT Arlington (Friday at 6:30 p.m.) and UC Davis (Saturday at 12 p.m.). Tickets for the tournament can be purchased online. Additionally, all six matches of the tournament will be live streamed on ESPN+.

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University of Montana Athletics

Griz open 2022 with free exhibition match vs. Carroll on Tuesday

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