First-year coach Hannah Lawing announced Thursday the schedule, which includes 30 regular-season contests. Xavier is the two-time defending Gulf Coast Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament champion and is 28-0 the past two seasons against GCAC opponents.
Xavier will play nine times in the Convocation Center, which opened in November and seats nearly 4,000 for volleyball or basketball. The Gold Nuggets' home opener will start at 1 p.m. on Sept. 14 against Voorhees, which will join the GCAC in July to increase league membership to nine.
Xavier's other GCAC home matches will be against Fisk on Sept. 16, Tougaloo on Sept. 23, Dillard on Oct. 5, SUNO on Oct. 21 and Philander Smith on Oct. 28. Non-conference home matches will be against Loyola on Sept. 18, Mobile on Oct. 15 and Avila on Oct. 18. The Avila match will be part of a two-day tournament co-hosted by Xavier and Loyola with matches on both campuses. Avila will play Mobile at the Convocation Center at 2 p.m. on Oct. 18.
The Convocation Center replaces The Barn, a 1,300-seat gymnasium which opened in 1937 and was razed in May. The Gold Nuggets won in their Barn finale in 2012, a 21-25, 17-25, 25-15, 25-12, 15-7 decision against SUNO which clinched for the Nuggets the GCAC regular-season championship.
The Nuggets' matches against 2012 NAIA National Championship qualifiers will be Spring Hill on Aug. 23 and Sept. 3, St. Thomas (Texas) on Aug. 30 and Georgetown (Ky.) on Sept. 7. All four will be part of 13 consecutive road matches to start the season, including a school-record eight matches in August.
Xavier will begin its sixth season on Aug. 23 in the UMobile/Spring Hill Tournament at Mobile, Ala., playing Spring Hill at 2 p.m. and Asbury at 4 p.m. The Gold Nuggets also will travel to Houston and Georgetown, Ky., for tournaments. Georgetown defeated Xavier in four sets in the opening round of the 2012 NAIA National Championship.
Avila, Columbia (S.C.), Lourdes, Montana Tech, Trinity Christian and Voorhees will be first-time opponents.
Xavier will visit SUNO on Oct. 8 and Dillard on Nov. 2 in the regular-season finale. The GCAC Tournament will be played in Little Rock, Ark., for the second consecutive year, and the winner will earn the GCAC's automatic bid to the NAIA National Championship.
Another road match in New Orleans will be at Loyola on Oct. 19 in the finale of the Loyola/Xavier Tournament.
Match times and tournament names are subject to change.
Xavier was 22-8 in 2012 and returns all its major contributors from that team, including GCAC Player of the Year Taylor Reuther, first-team All-GCAC players Moira Kirk and Franziska Pirkl and second-teamers Chinedu Echebelem, Jodi Chatters and CeCe Williams. Echebelem was the GCAC Tournament MVP.
2013 XULA VOLLEYBALL SCHEDULE
By Ed Cassiere, SID
XULAATHLETICS
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUSIANA
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