Red Raider Volleyball Opens 2020 Season with Mountaineers

LUBBOCK, Texas – The Texas Tech Red Raider volleyball team opens its 2020 season this weekend with a pair of matches against Big 12 foe West Virginia on Thursday and Friday. Both matches will begin at 6 p.m. and be streamed live via Big 12 Now on ESPN+.

Texas Tech (0-0) -vs- West Virginia (0-0)
Dates	Sept. 24 & 25
Site \| Location	United Supermarkets Arena \| Lubbock, Texas
Match 1 - Thursday	vs. West Virginia \| 6 p.m. \| Live Stats \| Watch \| Tickets
Match 2 - Friday	vs. West Virginia \| 6 p.m. \| Live Stats \| Watch \| Tickets
Texas Tech Volleyball	Volleyball Home Page \| Match Notes \| Twitter

SENIOR NIGHT
This season, the Red Raiders will host Senior Night on the second home match of the season instead of the last. Following Friday's match against the Mountaineers, the Red Raider volleyball team will honor the careers of seniors Emerson Solano, Haley Hartman and Allison Bloss. The team will also honor Theresa Bowman, who served as the program's administrative assistant for 21 years.

GAMEDAY PROTOCOLS
• A reminder that a clear bag policy is in effect for all Texas Tech athletic events
• The USA ticket office opens 1 hour prior to first serve (NW entrance)
• Masks must be worn at all times. Practice social distancing as necessary.

KANAS NAMED TO PRESEASON ALL-BIG 12 TEAM
Texas Tech volleyball's Brooke Kanas was named to the 2020 All-Big 12 Preseason Team, announced by the league last month. The nod marks the second straight year that Kanas has been named to the preseason squad. Coming off of a fantastic freshman season in 2018, Kanas turned it up a notch in 2019 and finished third on the team with 255 kills. The New Braunfels, Texas, native tallied a season-high 19 kills twice (once against Lehigh and the other against TCU) and posted a career-high .607 hitting percentage against Lehigh on opening weekend. Kanas made nine starts in her sophomore campaign and finished the season with 11 double-digit kill matches.

STRONG FRESHMAN CLASS
With three Red Raiders making up head coach Tony Graystone's 2020 recruiting class, Texas Tech volleyball's incoming group earned Highest Honorable Mention recognition from PrepVolleyball.com. Graystone's strong 2020 recruiting class is comprised of three members – Mackenzie Morgan, Reese Rhodes and Maddie O'Brien, who arrived at Texas Tech as an early enrollee in January.

Morgan, a six-foot-three outside hitter from Bellville High School will add great depth to Tech's group of outside hitters and Graystone says her ball control will allow her to succeed on the court. A six-foot-one setter from Midway High School, Rhodes provides great versatility that will help the Red Raiders in numerous ways. O'Brien, a six-foot-two outside hitter from Cinco Ranch High School, joined the Red Raiders on campus in January and already started making her mark.

GRAYSTONE ADDS PAIR OF POWER FIVE TRANSFERS
Following another successful season under head coach Tony Graystone, the Texas Tech volleyball team gained a couple of powerful assets with the signing of Texas A&M transfer Samantha Sanders and Washington State transfer Reagan Cooper.

Sanders competed in three seasons at Texas A&M, where she registered 265 kills and 54 blocks in 162 sets. The outside hitter appeared in 34 sets as a junior for the Aggies where she collected 40 kills. She posted a season-best eight kills at No. 25 Louisville and put down three kills against Fairfield for a .286 hitting percentage. Sanders came off the bench and threw up three blocks against Alabama in the Aggies' SEC opener on Sept. 24. She registered four kills and a block against Arkansas and logged five kills and one block at LSU.

Measuring at six-foot-one, Cooper made an appearance in 11 matches and 19 sets as a true freshman for the Cougars. She drilled a season-high nine kills, two blocks and 10 points against Stony Brooke on Aug. 31 before going off for a .500 hitting percentage against Utah State on Sept. 6. Cooper leaves Washington State after collecting 39 kills, five blocks and nine digs in her freshman campaign.

2019 LEFTOVERS
• Finishing Big 12 Conference play with a 7-9 record, the Red Raiders posted their best finish in program history after taking fifth place in the league last season. Prior to this season, Texas Tech posted sixth-place finishes in a stacked Big 12 race in 1996, 1998, 2000 and 2016.
• In 2019, the Red Raiders finished as an AVCA Top-100 Team for the third consecutive season.
• Texas Tech returns two players from a season ago who started all 30 matches – Emerson Solano and Allison White.
• Texas Tech will look to fill the shoes of a senior class that racked up 63 victories, the most of any senior class since the 2003 season.
• Last season, the Red Raiders racked up four conference road wins – its most Big 12 season road wins since posting four back in 2001.
• Texas Tech set another bar last year as it earned its first season sweep over Iowa State for the first time since 2004. The Red Raiders opened up the 2019 season series with a 3-1 win over the Cyclones in Ames, Iowa, on Oct. 19 before posting an identical win at home on Nov. 20.
• Nationally, the Red Raiders finished the 2019 regular season ranked 55th in team kills, 59th in team assists, 74th in total attacks, 86th in kills per set, 88th in assists per set and 98th in attacks per set. Emily Hill remained among the nation's leaders throughout the season and finished her senior campaign ranked eighth in total attacks, 11th in attacks per set, 21st in points, 2nd in total kills, 30th in kills per set and 38th in points per set.
• Three Red Raiders ranked in the league's top 10 following the conclusion of the 2019 regular season. Senior Emily Hill ranked first in kills (491) and points (545), second in kills per set (4.23), third in points per set (4.70) and ninth in aces per set (0.24). Junior libero Emerson Solano finished third in the league with 4.01 digs per set and sophomore setter Alex Kirby ranked fifth overall with 10.22 assists per set.
• Emerson Solano joined the 1000 career-dig club thanks to a 28-dig performance at Oklahoma on Nov. 13. Solano collected 171 digs as a freshman, 444 digs last season and she finished her junior campaign with 457 digs. She now has 1,072 digs in her Texas Tech career.
• The Red Raiders posted four key wins against teams ranked higher in the NCAA Women's Volleyball RPI during the 2019 season. Tech opened up the season with a clean sweep over VCU – who ended the regular season ranked 47th – before edging 63rd-ranked Ohio State, 3-2. Tech's third victory against a higher-ranked team came when they downed Iowa State (47th) by a score of 3-1 in Ames, Iowa. The Red Raiders earned their fourth win against higher-ranked opponents on Nov. 20, with an identical 3-1 win over Iowa State in Lubbock at United Supermarkets Arena.

RED RAIDER NATION TURNS OUT
Red Raider Nation cracked into the Red Raiders' top-10 crowd count at United Supermarkets Arena last season. A whopping 1,545 fans (8th all-time at the USA) packed into the USA against Texas on Oct. 30 and 1,485 fans (9th all-time at the USA) came out to see the Red Raiders take on Baylor on Nov. 9.

JONES NAMED TO U.S. COLLEGIATE NATIONAL TEAM
After a strong showing at the U.S. Women's National Team Open Tryouts, Texas Tech volleyball's Karrington Jones became the fifth Red Raider in program history to earn a spot on the U.S. Women's Collegiate National Team. Now one in five Red Raiders to join a U.S. squad, Jones joins Brooke Kanas (freshman 2019), Reyn Akiu (junior, 2017), Rachel Brummit (senior, 2014) and Breeann David (senior, 2014).

Taking on an increased roll in 2019, Jones stood tall at the net and led the Red Raiders with 92 blocks (0.92 per set) in her sophomore season. She started all but five games in 2019 and ranked fourth on the team with 164 kills. Jones collected three double-digit kill matches over the course of the season and posted a career-high 10 blocks in a huge win over Kansas on Oct. 16. She buried a career-high 12 kills against TCU and powered 15 points in a big win for the Red Raiders at UNLV on Sept. 19.

WONG NAMED USA GIRLS YOUTH NATIONAL TEAM TECHNICAL COORDINATOR
Texas Tech volleyball assistant coach Jon Wong continues his work with USA Volleyball after being named the technical coordinator for the 2020 U.S. Girls Youth National Training Team, announced by the organization on Thursday, June 18.

No stranger to the USA Volleyball pipeline, Wong spent the 2019 summer coaching with the USA Junior National Team at the FIVB U20 World Championships held in Aguascalientes & Leon, Mexico. He served as the team's technical assistant coach and helped the team to a top-10 finish. Wong also served as the technical coordinator and assistant coach for the USA Women's National Team at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, this summer as well.

TECH VOLLEYBALL HONORED FOR ACADEMIC SUCCESS
The Texas Tech volleyball team earned the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award, announced by the organization on Monday, July 20. The nod marks the second year in a row that the Red Raiders have received the award.

The award, initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors volleyball teams that maintain a year-long grade-point average of 3.30 on a 4.0 scale or 4.10 on a 5.0 scale. This year, the United State Marine Corps (USMC) and the AVCA announced that 1,313 teams earned the USMC/AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2019-2020 season, topping last year's record by almost 200 teams. 232 programs received Team Academic honors for the first time in 2020.

Red Raider Volleyball Opens 2020 Season with Mountaineers

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Players Mentioned

Allison Bloss

Reagan Cooper

Emily Hill

Karrington Jones

Brooke Kanas

Alex Kirby

Mackenzie Morgan

Maddie O'Brien

Reese Rhodes

Samantha Sanders

Emerson Solano