Three pre-season tournaments, including Azusa Pacific’s first at home in over a decade, highlight the 2008 Cougar volleyball schedule, and the program’s first three-tournament preseason schedule in 12 years should help prepare 2007’s fifth-ranked Cougars for play in the toughest volleyball conference in the NAIA.

Azusa Pacific kicks off the schedule with the Cougar Classic, its first home tournament since 1987, with matches being played on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 22-23. The Cougars will host three Golden State Athletic Conference schools (Biola, California Baptist, The Master’s) along with four other NAIA programs (Daemen, Eastern Oregon, Great Falls, Indiana Wesleyan) for a total of eight competing teams over the two-day tournament.

After the Cougar Classic, Azusa Pacific heads to Concordia’s Labor Day Festival on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 29-30, in Irvine. The Cougars then wrap up pre-season play at Carroll College’s Sept. 5-6 tournament before returning to California for the start of GSAC play.

The Cougars begin a competitive conference season as they host defending NAIA Champion Fresno Pacific in both teams’ GSAC opener on Tuesday, Sept. 9, a 7 p.m. contest in the Felix Event Center. The clash between conference powers will mark the second straight season the programs have faced each other to kick off GSAC play.

With all four 2007 NAIA National Championship semifinalist teams (Fresno Pacific, California Baptist, Concordia, and Biola), and seven of the NAIA’s Top 25 ranked teams from 2007, the GSAC is without question the NAIA’s top volleyball conference from top to bottom, and the 20-match conference schedule should prove to be excellent preparation for the 2008 NAIA Tournament in Sioux City, Iowa.

Click the schedule/results link from the Azusa Pacific volleyball home page to view the full 2008 season schedule.