“For a lot of teams, there’s new pieces. There’s also pieces that have left,” third-year coach Travers Green said.
Wright State has had its own impact transfer. Mya Ayro, who played last season as a freshman at UConn, is third in the league with a team-best 3.9 kills per set.
“It’ll be interesting to see the teams on video and get an opportunity to compete with them,” Green said.
The Raiders, who go into HL play with an 8-3 record, travel to IU Indy (formerly IUPUI) for games at 6 p.m. Friday and 3 p.m. Saturday under the league’s new scheduling format.
Teams will face the same opponent twice in one weekend, playing four foes at home and four on the road.
Each school also will have a designated rival, and those two games will be held on weekdays about a month apart.
The appeal of the new schedule is that it cuts down on travel and reduces time away from classes.
“There’s some nuances and reasons why we went with that. It’s giving our student-athletes a little more consistency on when our matches are played. And we’re not traveling after we play on Friday to another place. We can stay in one location,” Green said.
“It allows us to play that Saturday match earlier so we can get back sooner. It also lessons the load from a scouting standpoint, preparing for just one opponent.”
It’s a virtual repeat of the 2020-21 pandemic schedule for volleyball and men’s and women’s basketball. Coaches with the better teams weren’t overly thrilled with that arrangement, feeling it gave Friday’s loser extra motivation on Saturday. But they were just happy to be playing.
The Raiders will face Cleveland State, Green Bay, Robert Morris and Purdue Fort Wayne at home, while their other road trips are to Youngstown State, Milwaukee and Oakland.
They’ll play Northern Kentucky at home Oct. 1 and on the road Oct. 29.
Detroit Mercy is the lone HL school without volleyball.
“In reality, there’s no perfect schedule. It’ll be tough playing the same opponents on back-to-back nights. But at the end of the day, the top six teams are going to go to the conference tournament, and that’s what matters most,” Green said.
GOLF: The Raiders don’t get into the meat of their schedule until the spring, but they already look to be in peak form through two fall tournaments.
They stormed to an eight-stroke win in the Golden Grizzlies Intercollegiate in Oakland, Mich., last week. The 15-team field included seven league foes.
Sophomore Timmy Hollenbeck was medalist, and junior Shane Ochs finished second.
In their 2024-25 opener, they were second out of 15 teams at the Golfweek Fall Challenge in Pawleys Island, S.C., losing only to Arkansas State.
Fifth-year player Andrew Flynn, who beat Hollenbeck in a playoff for the Horizon League individual title last spring (Wright State won by a whopping 18 strokes), finished second overall.
The Raiders play in Bowling Green’s Virtues Intercollegiate in Nashport, Ohio, Sept 28-29.
They finish the fall at the Dayton Flyer Invitational at NCR Country Club Oct 21-22.
MEN’S SOCCER: The Raiders are tied for second in the early league standings with four points, beating IU Indy, 2-0, at home and tying Milwaukee, 3-3, on the road.
They were 3-3-2 overall going into Tuesday’s game at Butler and 1-0-1 in the league.
They host first-place Purdue Fort Wayne (2-0) at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Senior forward Cole Werthmuller is tied for first in the HL with 12 points (five goals, two assists).
He’s also first in the league with 3.57 shots per game and second with an average of 1.57 shots on goal.
Sophomore midfielder Henry Hutchinson is second in the HL with four assists.
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