Eagles Host Home Tournament

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Boston College volleyball will host Princeton, North Texas and Bryant for the Beantown Challenge, beginning Friday, September 1.

The weekend will commence with BC challenging Princeton at 11 a.m., followed by North Texas against Bryant at 1 p.m. Following those two matches, Princeton and North Texas will take the court at 5 p.m. and BC will cap the night against Bryant 7:30 p.m. Each team will play another match on Saturday, BC taking the court at 12 p.m. against North Texas.

The Eagles opened their season last weekend, tallying their first win over UAB, winning in four sets and finishing the BC Invitational 1-2. Six of the seven newcomers made their debut against Fairfield. Sophomore Cat Balido paced the weekend for BC, scoring a team-high 35 points, hitting 32 kills and recording 26 digs.

Though the Eagles are a young team, head coach Chris Campbell felt that the BC Invitational provided some worthwhile lessons.

"One of the big things for us is being able to recognize when we have opportunities within a rally to close things out," said Campbell. "We call it 'making easy plays easy.' It's recognizing when we've got a possibility for an advantage and making the appropriate move to capitalize on it. I think there's low-hanging fruit in terms of extra points to pick up in each set that we can solve pretty easily and that don't require a change of technique or a change of skill. We're still young so it takes some time to do that, but I think that's available for us."

Princeton will open their season against BC. The Tigers had a 19-5 record last season and won the Ivy League tournament. This clinched them a berth in the NCAA tournament, only to fall in the first round to then No. 13 BYU.

North Texas sits at 2-1 to begin their 2017 campaign after hosting their own tournament this past weekend. The Mean Green walked away from 2016 with an overall record of 13-19, recording 7-7 in their conference, Conference USA. Mean Green senior Amanda Chamberlain was named C-USA Offensive Player of the Week based on her performance this past week.

Bryant is coming off a 3-1 home win over Quinnipiac, bringing them to 2-2 overall at the beginning of the season. The Bulldogs ended their 2016 season 19-15 overall and 10-4 in the Northeast Conference. They made it to the NEC Semifinal, but fell to LIU Brooklyn.

"It's a good tournament," said Campbell. "Princeton won the Ivy League last year. They were solid. North Texas is a very solid team. They've got a great right side. Bryant's always strong so it's a good test for us this weekend."

2017 Beantown Challenge Schedule

Friday, September 1
11 a.m.             Boston College vs. Princeton
1 p.m.               North Texas vs. Bryant
5 p.m.               Princeton vs. North Texas
7:30 p.m.          Boston College vs. Bryant

Saturday, September 2
12 p.m.             Boston College vs. North Texas
2 p.m.               Bryant vs. Princeton

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Players Mentioned

Cat Balido

Boston College Athletics