ADRIAN, Mich. – The Siena Heights women's volleyball team begins the 2022 season with the two-day Onset Invitational hosted by Saint Francis (Ind.) in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on Friday and Saturday August 19-20. The Saints will compete in two matches each day to get the season rolling.
PRESEASON
The Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) announced the 2022 WHAC Women's Volleyball Preseason Coaches poll earlier in August. The SHU women's volleyball team was selected to finish fifth in the poll after accumulating 75 points.
LAST SEASON
The Saints finished the 2021 season with their best record since 2017 with a 19-9 overall record and were one spot better than the preseason poll after a 13-7—the most wins in the WHAC since 2015—showing in league play.
Last season saw some huge moments for the program, with SHU snapping a 12-game losing streak to Cornerstone with a 3-1 victory at home. Aubrey Bates also reached the 1,000 career-assists milestone in a win over Aquinas.
POSTSEASON STREAK
The Siena Heights women's volleyball has qualified for the WHAC Tournament for the past 11 seasons. That streak encompasses the entirety of the Kim Berrington era for the program.
Last season, the Saints entered postseason play as the fifth-seeded team. They knocked off fourth-seeded Aquinas in the quarterfinals before falling to the top-seeded Crusaders of Madonna in the semifinals.
2022 SCHEDULE
The team competes in a 30-match regular season that kicks off tomorrow, Friday, August 19, and ends Saturday, November 5, 2022. The Saints begin at the Onset Invitational with matches against Indiana Northwest and Oakland City on day one. Huntington and Grace follow on day two.
The home opener is on Wednesday, August 31, against Spring Arbor. Then Siena Heights will host the annual SHU Tournament on Labor Day weekend and play Cardinal Stritch and Thomas More on Friday, September 2, before wrapping the tournament on Saturday with matches against Mount Vernon Nazarene and Roosevelt.
Conference play begins on Wednesday, September 7, when SHU hosts UM-Dearborn inside the Fieldhouse at 7:00 p.m. The Saints will host 15 home matches during the regular season. All home matches will be streamed live. Links for the video feed, live stats, and tickets for home contests can be found on the team's schedule page.
THE TEAM
The Saints women's volleyball team returns a list of starters for the 2022 season, including junior setter Aubrey Bates and sophomore middle blocker Olivia Norman.
Bates was the 2021 WHAC Setter of the Year and first-team All-WHAC member. She reached the 1,000 career assists milestone in just her second season with SHU. The Grand Haven, Michigan native currently sits sixth in career assists with 1,633.
Norman was named to the All-WHAC second-team as well as the all-freshman squad. She led the Saints at the net with 95 total blocks and was second on the team in kills with 232.
Along with Bates and Norman, three returning members from the 2021 team played in 100 sets or more, Payton Osborne (Jr., DS/L), Kadie Carsten (Jr., OH), and Sammy Huddleston (Sr., DS), to provide veteran leadership to SHU.
THE COACHING STAFF
Kim Berrington enters her eighth season as the head coach of the Siena Heights women's volleyball team. Berrington earned a career milestone last season when she cracked 600 wins after the win over Adrian College. Berrington's 122-81 record at Siena Heights makes her the winningest coach in program history. Her staff includes 2021 AVCA Mideast Region Assistant Coach of the Year Corey Ness, who enters her third season as the SHU assistant coach. In addition, Emily Finkbeiner joins the staff this season as a graduate assistant, and Milton Resh enters his third season as the recruiting coordinator for SHU.
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