The volleyball team announces the 2022 fall schedule for its 16th season in the NAIA. The Saints compete in the Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC) along with Huston-Tillotson University (HTU), the University of the Southwest (USW), Paul Quinn College (PQC), Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA), Jarvis Christian College (JCC), Louisiana Christian University (LCU) and Texas College (TX). Texas A&M University – Texarkana (TAMUT) is the conference’s newest member for volleyball.

Head Coach Scott Mattera commented, “I’m so happy the conference adopted our ‘doubleheader’ format as it not only cuts down on travel and costs, it balances the schedule so all teams are playing an equal number of matches and each team twice.”

“It’s really hard to get teams to come this far south to play once the season gets rolling, so we have to load up on home matches early in the year during the preconference part of the schedule,” Mattera explained. “Starting off with nine straight home matches is pretty crazy but it will give our fans lots of opportunities to see what OLLU volleyball is all about!”

Two OLLU Tournaments
(Numbers in parenthesis are all-time records.)

The season begins with the OLLU inaugural Alamo City Volleyesta Tournament from Aug. 19-20. Teams participating include Wayland Baptist University (4-8), Evangel  University (1-1), Texas Wesleyan University (9-9) and HTU (27-3). The Saints play Evangel at 7 p.m. on Aug. 19 and on Aug. 20, Wayland at 12 p.m. and Texas Wesleyan at 5 p.m.

The following week, the Saints will host the third annual San Antonio ShinDig featuring Friends University (1-1), Loyola University (1-1), Southwestern Assemblies of God University (SAGU) (10-8) and Westcliff University. OLLU plays Friends at 2 p.m. and SAGU at 7 p.m. on Aug. 26. The Saints play Loyola at 1:30 p.m. and Westcliff at 6 p.m. on Aug. 27.

Mattera said, “We are really excited to have some teams coming to San Antonio that we haven’t had here in a long time, if ever, including really solid programs from Evangel, Loyola, Westcliff, Friends, and Texas Wesleyan. Add them to always good SAGU and Wayland Baptist, and our young team will have to grow up fast.”

Conference matches

All RRAC matches will be at 7 p.m. on Fridays and 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The schedule begins Sept. 9-10 as the Saints host PQC (5-0). After a nonconference match on Sept. 14 at Texas Lutheran University (4-2) in San Marcos, Texas, the Saints will travel to TAMUT for conference matches on Sept. 16-17. USW (22-4) will come to OLLU for matches on Sept. 23-24.

OLLU will travel to Austin for matches against HTU Sept. 30-Oct. 1 and the Saints will return to host LCU (1-0) on Oct. 14-15. Texas Lutheran will come to OLLU on Oct. 19 for a nonconference match. The Saints will head out to New Orleans on Oct. 21-22 for matches against XULA (3-2).

The final two series will take place Oct. 28-29 against Texas College (24-0) at home and Nov. 4-5 against JCC (19-0) in Hawkins, Texas.

Postseason schedule

The conference tournament will be hosted by XULA in New Orleans Nov. 11-12, and the NAIA’s opening-round matches will take place at campus sites on Nov. 19. Qualifiers will advance to the 43rd Annual NAIA Volleyball National Championship at Tysons Events Center in Sioux City, Iowa, Nov. 30-Dec. 6.