Volleyball Schedule for Fall 2021 Announced

The Fall 2021 UB Volleyball schedule has been announced. As in previous non-COVID years, the schedule begins with four non-conference tournaments on consecutive weekends. This is followed by 18 MAC matches (in previous non-COVID years, there were 16 MAC matches).

Buffalo opens at Syracuse on Friday, August 27, in a tournament featuring the home team, plus Buffalo, Albany and Connecticut. The next weekend, they travel to meet Nate Oats in Alabama, and will face the host team plus Southern Mississippi and Troy.

The Bulls then host a home tournament starting September 10. The highlight of this tournament will be an appearance by West Virginia, coached by former UB volleyball coach Reed Sunahara. It will be Sunahara’s first return to Alumni Arena. This starts Sunahara’s seventh year at the helm of the Mountaineer program, during which time he has recorded only one winning season, and has never been above 0.500 in the Big 12. The other teams competing this weekend will be Duquesne and Canisius.

The Bulls finish the non-conference season the next weekend at Old Dominion, against the home team and also Norfolk State and Radford.

The MAC schedule begins on Friday, September 24. Unlike other non-COVID years, this year the MAC schedule will have Buffalo play back-to-back matches on consecutive days against all MAC East opponents (except Akron), and also back-to-back matches against some MAC West teams, while the Bulls will face other MAC West teams once (playing two opponents on consecutive days).

Buffalo will face Miami (OH) on September 24 and 25 at Alumni Arena. The next weekend they are on the road at defending MAC Champion Bowling Green for two matches. Buffalo then has five consecutive home matches, against Toledo (Oct. 8), Ball State (Oct 9.), Akron (Oct 13) and Ohio (twice, Oct 15–16).

The next two weekends, the Bulls are on the road at Kent State (twice), Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan. Then they are at home for two matches against Western Michigan (Nov 5–6), before finishing the season on the road at Northern Illinois (twice) and Akron.

Notes:

• None of the non-conference opponents made an appearance in the 48 team NCAA Women’s Volleyball tournament in the spring. Only Bowling Green among the MAC teams appeared in the tournament, and they lost to Weber State in the first round.
• Buffalo will play an exhibition match at Colgate on August 21.
• Home games on weeknights are at 6pm. Saturday home games are at 4pm.
• The Bulls were recently honored by the AVCA for academic excellence. According to the article at ubbulls.com, “As a team, the Bulls finished with a 3.42 GPA this past season, including 11 players with a cumulative GPA of 3.00 of better. Seven of those individuals have a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Earlier this summer, senior Lexi Nordmann was named a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection. She was one of four players also named academic All-MAC.”