HAVERFORD, Pa. – Haverford College volleyball has announced its 2014 schedule. The Fords' regular season slate will include 29 matches to be played over the course of 20 competition days. Thirteen of those matches will be played inside the Calvin Gooding '84 Arena. The regular season will get underway with the Haverford Invitational, which runs from August 30-31.
In their home opening tournament, the Fords will host Widener and UMass-Boston on Saturday, while competing against Stevenson and Susquehanna on Sunday. Stevenson was an NCAA qualifier last season. The following weekend, Haverford will be on the road for a tri-match at Stockton with opponents to be determined. The Fords will also take part in the Neumann Knight's Invitational on September 12-13. With matchups to be set, Eastern, Marymount, Moravian, Muhlenberg, Scranton, Stockton, and Widener will all be at the invitational.
The first single match day of competition falls on September 17 at 2013 NCAA qualifier Cabrini. That will also be Haverford's final tune-up before the Centennial Conference portion of the schedule gets underway with a match at Dickinson. The Fords will follow that conference opener with a non-conference neutral date against Messiah later that day as part of a tri-match.
Haverford will host Centennial Conference foe McDaniel on September 24. The month of September comes to a close on September 26-27 at the Eastern University Quad. Salisbury and Widener will also be participating in that weekend in Wayne, Pa. Eastern advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals last season, while Salisbury was also an NCAA qualifier.
October opens with five straight home matches for the Fords. On the first of the month, Franklin & Marshall comes to Haverford. F & M went 10-0 to earn the top seed in the conference tournament last season. October 4 will see a tri-match in front of the Fords' fans as Gettysburg comes in for a conference matchup, while Baruch will also take part in the schedule. The homestand wraps up on October 8 and 9 with matches against Ursinus and Moravian, respectively.
Seeing its first action on the road in October during the middle of the month, Haverford travels to Muhlenberg (Oct. 16) and Johns Hopkins (Oct. 18) for a pair of Centennial Conference clashes. Johns Hopkins rallied for the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament to clinch the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The final home conference meeting will be October 22 against Bryn Mawr. A tri-match with Elizabethtown and Kean on October 25 wraps up the home schedule. The regular season comes to a close with road trips to Washington (Oct. 29) and Swarthmore (Nov. 1).
Volleyball enters its fourth season under Head Coach Michele Benoit in 2014. Haverford has improved its winning percentage in each succesive season under Benoit, finishing 21-7 overall last fall. The Fords were 6-4 overall in the Centennial Conference last season, tying them for fifth place in the standings.