2015 Women's Volleyball Schedule

NEWARK, NJ—The 2015 NJIT women's volleyball schedule announced by head coach Peter Volkert includes matches against a mix of opponents from the Northeast region of the United States and 14 matches against Atlantic Sun Conference teams from the Southeast region of the United States.
 
The first 12 contests, which run from August 28 through September 19, will be played as part of four in-season tournaments host by Central Connecticut, St. Francis Brooklyn, Columbia, and Lafayette.
 
Beginning with a September 23 match in Poughkeepsie, NY, at Marist, the Highlanders will play single six single non-conference matches sprinkled in among the 14 tilts in the Atlantic Sun, which expanded to add NJIT as its eighth full member, effective July 1, 2015.
 
The Highlanders will debut in conference play with a home match on Friday, September 25, at 7 pm in the Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center against Lipscomb, which won the 2014 A-Sun regular season title and is the pick in the coaches' preseason conference poll to claim the 2015 title. Lipscomb features Preseason A-Sun Player of the Year Brittnay Estes and Preseason Setter of the Year Kayla Ostrom..
 
Lipscomb was 13-1 in the 2014 A-Sun regular season and posted an overall record of 21-9. Last season, Lipscomb became the first team in conference history to earn an at-large berth into the NCAA Division I national tournament.
 
The Atlantic Sun's automatic qualifying spot in the NCAAs went to Jacksonville (coming to NJIT on November 8 in the home finale), which topped Lipscomb in the 2014 title match, thus earning its second consecutive conference championship. Lipscomb has played in the A-Sun final in seven of the last eight years.
 
Jacksonville is third in the 2015 coaches' poll, trailing Florida Gulf Coast, which garnered the one first-place vote in the poll that didn't go to Lipscomb. Both Jacksonville and FGCU won 19 matches last season. Florida Gulf Coast comes to Newark on October 2.
 
The other home Atlantic Sun contests for the Highlanders are: Stetson (October 4), Kennesaw State (October 16), USC Upstate (October 18), and North Florida (November 6).
 
NJIT will play its seven Atlantic Sun Conference counterparts on the road in the regular season, as well. And the conference champion will be crowned at the end of the A-Sun Tournament, to be hosted by Lipscomb in Nashville, Tennessee from November 19 to 21.
 
The 2015 season opens for the Highlanders with three matches in New Britain, CT, in the Central Connecticut tournament (August 28 and 29). NJIT will take on Bucknell, Fairfield, and host CCSU.
 
The following weekend, the Highlanders will go to Brooklyn, NY, for a tournament where they'll face host St. Francis, plus Valparaiso and Rider. Valparaiso was 25-8 last season.
 
Tournament play continues September 11 and 12 at Columbia, where the opponents will be perennial power American (26-7 in 2014 and at least 21 wins every season but one since the year 2000), Northeastern (a 19-win team as recently as 2013) and the host Lions.
 
The final scheduled in-season tournament September 18 and 19 at Lafayette in Easton, PA, includes repeat opponents from earlier tournaments, as NJIT will take on the host Leopards, as well as Rider and St. Francis Brooklyn.
 
The first non-conference home matchup is on Saturday, September 26, when the Highlanders host Penn at 5 pm, a day after the A-Sun home opener vs. Lipscomb.
 
NJIT will play home-and-home non-conference contests against nearby Saint Peter's. The Highlanders will travel a few mile east to Jersey City to play on September 30 and the Peacocks will visit Newark on October 14. The teams split last season's home-and-home, with the home side prevailing each time.
 
The final two non-conference matchups will pit NJIT at home against two other nearby foes. Fairleigh Dickinson will invade the Fleisher Athletic Center on October 28 and Manhattan comes to town on November 4. Volkert, the veteran coach in his second season at the helm for the Highlanders, was head coach at Manhattan for seven seasons, guiding the Jaspers to 132 wins and reaching the NCAA Tournament three times after winning the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship in 2000, 2002 (30-3 overall record) and 2003.