COMMERCE– The Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team is prepared to begin the 2018 season. The Lions open up their season with four games in two days in Stephenville at the Tarleton Invitational.
 
LION VOLLEYBALL AT TARLETON INVITATIONAL
Friday, August 24
12:30 p.m. - Lions vs. Harding
5:30 p.m. - Lions vs. Black Hills State

Saturday, August 25
11:30 a.m. - Lions vs. No. 16 Central Oklahoma
4:30 p.m. - Lions vs. Oklahoma Baptist

LIVE STATS: http://statbroadcast.com/events/statmonitr.php?gid=tarl
 
The Lion Volleyball team began training camp on Aug. 6 and just hours before getting on the bus to head to their first match, head coach Craig Case was all smiles. It is his favorite time of the year. The volleyball season is mere hours away.
 
"It's that time of the year. It is beginning to feel a lot like volleyball season," Case said. "This time of the year, you are just excited to play other people after scrimmaging ourselves during camp. We are excited to see how we look against other teams in a real match situation."
 
The Lions had a successful 2017 season, winning 21 games and qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. With 11 players from last season's roster returning, Case is looking for the team to build on its previous success and take the program even further.
 
"Anytime you have a successful season and you have returners, the goal is to make sure the standards are being held," he said. "I think our returning players, especially our upperclassmen, have really focused on holding the standards and making sure everybody is focused on what the goal is. And that's trying to have a better season than we had last year."
 
The Lions also have 13 new players that have joined the team for the upcoming season. Through camp, Case has been impressed with the new recruits and likes the mindset they have.
 
"I think the competitiveness has been the biggest positive," Case said of the new players. "Even when some of them are struggling on the court, they are still competing and trying to win. That is one thing that stood out during our scrimmages. Our competitiveness has been very high, almost at midseason form. We are really happy about that."
 
After three weeks of scrimmaging each other nearly every day in practice, Case knows his players are excited to begin the season and to play against new competition. After teaching the fundamentals and working on getting better, now is the time for the team to start putting everything they have learned into action. Case said the team needs to start focusing on beating an opponent and not taking a single point for granted.
 
"We have to be competitive on every point," he said. "We have to figure out how to get locked in and get focused on the other side of the net. It's been easy to be focused on our side of the net because in camp, we know everybody on the other side of the net. We aren't in that situation anymore. We have to shift our focus and get focused on Harding, Black Hills State, Central Oklahoma and Oklahoma Baptist."

With two weeks of games before the Lions begin their conference schedule, Case knows the pre-conference schedule he has assembled will test his team and prepare them for conference play. He knows, from the first serve, there will be no easy victories.
 
"The teams we are playing would be good teams in the Lone Star Conference," he said. "We don't have a team that we are looking at on our pre-conference schedule that we are circling and saying it will be an easy win. Everybody we are playing in the preseason is really good. We are getting into the mindset early that if we don't show up and play our best, we are going to get beat in three. We have to have that mindset every night. Hopefully having that mindset will help us when we get into conference play."

Season tickets are available for the entire volleyball season by visiting the box office in The Field House, visiting WeAreLionsTix.com or by calling (903) 468-8756. Full season tickets are $50. The Lions begin their home schedule on Sept. 11 against Texas Woman's and will play 11 home matches during the season. The Lions finished a perfect 11-0 at home during the 2017 season.