EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. – The Cougars continue their 2024 campaign on September 6-7 traveling to North Dakota for the UND/NDSU Tournament. SIUE will open on Friday with a double header against Northern Iowa at 12:00 p.m. and North Dakota at 6:00 pm.
 
SCOUTING THE OPPONENTS: Northern Iowa started out with the Dayton Flyer Classic. UNI won their first game against Florida International 3-0. Then fell to Dayton 3-2 and RV Ohio state 3-1. This will be the first match up between UNI and SIUE.
 
North Dakota entered the season with the Lobo Invitational. Kicking off their season to UC Irvine (3-1) following with New Mexico (3-2) closing the tournament with their first win of the season against Tulane (3-1). The Cougars have only beat North Dakota once before in their three previous meetings.
 
NDSU began their 2024 campaign going 0-3 in the Fort Myers Classic. The Bisons fell to Albany 3-0 moving on to Florida Gulf Coast 3-2 and UCI in five sets. This will be the first time the Cougars play NDSU.
 
LAST WEEKEND: The Cougars went 1-2 in their first tournament of the season, sweeping Eastern Michigan in three sets later falling to Valparaiso and IU-Indy. As a team SIUE had 144 total kills with a .211 attack percentage. The Cougars averaged 2.62 blocks per set with 34 total blocks and 7 solo blocks.
 
ON THE OFFENSE: Sydney Hummert added 42 total kills to her record last weekend bringing her up to 930 career kills. Nicole Medlin made her SIUE debut last weekend playing all sets in all three games totaling 18 kills.
 
FRESHMAN STATS: Claire Jones started her freshman season against Valparaiso with a single game high of four digs. Taya Nordmann starts her debut with 12 total kills with five being against EMU. Kyndia Smith recorded her first 13 kills eight coming against Eastern Michigan.