MVNU is coming off its 17th straight 30-win seasons as the Lady Cougars went 37-10 last year. The team posted a 10-2 mark in American Mideast Conference play to finish second and earn the right to host the AMC Tournament. MVNU also finished as the National Christian College Athletic Association national runner-up for the second time in program history.

Head coach Paul Swanson will enter his 27th season with the Lady Cougars and has posted a 907-308 mark with the program to date. Swanson, who is also the NAIA's all-time wins leader with a 922-323 overall record, has assembled a group of players he is excited to lead into the new season.

"I am looking forward to seeing how this team comes together as we head into this new year,” said Swanson. "We have experience in some areas and question marks in others. The key thing every year is the individual improvement that the returning players make from the previous season and the contributions by the new players. Everyone is working really hard right now towards the common goal of a successful season.”

MVNU returns plenty of firepower for its offensive attack at the middle hitter position where seniors Jackie Albrecht and Sarah Yutzy lead the way with freshman Kelly Mast also figuring into the playing mix. Albrecht, who is the returning AMC and NCCAA National Player of the Year and an NAIA Second Team All-American, led the Lady Cougars with 635 kills and 56 aces last season, while Yutzy had a breakout campaign with a career-high 406 kills and a team-leading 172 blocks. Meanwhile, Mast was a Central District First Team performer at Gilead Christian School, which finished eighth in the Ohio Division IV poll.

Freshman Kendra Votaw, sophomore Haley Nofziger, senior Abby Smith, and freshman Courtney Briegel will each compete for time at the outside hitter position. Votaw was an All-Ohio First Team selection and the Central District Player of the Year as a senior at Gilead Christian, while Nofziger started 24 matches and pounded 125 kills as a freshman at MVNU in 2009. Smith will wrap up her four-year career with the Lady Cougars this season, and Briegel joins the squad after a being a four-year starter and a Mid-Buckeye Conference First Team pick at Fredericktown High School as a senior.

Sophomore Kaylee Hewitt and Smith among others will also compete for time at right-side hitter. Hewitt played in all 168 sets last year primarily in the back row where she posted 483 digs.

One question mark from a hitting standpoint for MVNU entering the 2010 campaign is junior Gina Porto. Porto was in the midst of an outstanding sophomore campaign last year when she suffered a season-ending knee injury that required surgery. Playing just the first half of the season, she still compiled 271 kills and 83 blocks and was named to two all-tournament teams. She continues to make progress, but she is definitely not at 100 percent as the season unfolds. Her addition to the team would make the Lady Cougars that much more of a contender as conference play gets under way.

MVNU returns a lot of experience in the back row where the Lady Cougars posted one of their best seasons in school history with a 93.8 serve reception percentage and 3,362 digs. Senior libero Caitlin Myles led the team with 803 digs and a 98.6 serving percentage last year, while Hewitt, Briegel, and freshman Morgan Pridemore, who posted 510 digs as a senior at Greenon High School, will all compete for time in the back row.

Rounding out the lineup, sophomore setter Lauren Percival is poised to take over the all-important duties of running the MVNU offensive attack after playing primarily in the back row as a freshman where she compiled 160 digs and 94 assists.

"One of the strengths of this team should be its play in the back row with the experience that we have returning from last season,” said Swanson. "We also expect Jackie and Sarah to continue their solid play at the net, and we are expecting Kendra to play a significant role early in her college career. However, it will take everyone on the team working hard together for us to continue to have the success on and off the court.”

The Lady Cougars will find themselves tested right out of the gate when MVNU opens the season at Grace against Indiana University-East, a team that received votes in the NAIA preseason poll. The Lady Cougars will play four matches overall at Grace on their opening weekend and then travel to St. Ambrose (Iowa) University the next weekend for another tournament. After a non-conference match at Kenyon College on September 1, the team will play in the Saint Vincent (Pa.) College Challenge on Labor Day weekend.

MVNU will play the first of four home matches in September on September 8 when the Lady Cougars will host NAIA No. 19 Shawnee State University in a non-conference match. The Lady Bears where the AMC regular-season champions last year, but have moved to the Mid-South Conference this year. Non-conference home matches against Otterbein College and Denison University sandwich a trip to the competitive Indiana Wesleyan University Wildcat Classic.

Other non-conference matches on the schedule include contests against Urbana University, Lourdes College, the University of Northwestern Ohio, Ohio Wesleyan University, the University of Rio Grande, and another meeting with Shawnee State – this time on the road.

MVNU will also vie for the AMC title with 10 other teams. Walsh University, Malone University (receiving votes), Cedarville University, Point Park (Pa.) University, Notre Dame College, Daemen (N.Y.) College, Roberts Wesleyan (N.Y.) College, Houghton (N.Y.) College, Ursuline College, and Carlow (Pa.) University will join the Lady Cougars in fighting for one of five spots in the AMC Tournament with one automatic berth in the NAIA National Championship Opening Round on the line.

In addition, MVNU will compete for the NCCAA East Region title with a five-team tournament at Roberts Wesleyan (N.Y.) College on October 15-16. The winner of that tournament receives an automatic berth in the NCCAA National Tournament to be held once again in Kissimmee, Fla.

"Competing for the AMC title will be a challenge with several very good teams in the mix,” said Swanson. "The goal is to get to the AMC Tournament then take things a match at a time. As a team, we want to continue to improve over the next three months so that we are peaking at the right time.”

After Friday's first match against Indiana-East at 4 p.m., the Lady Cougars will take on Bethel (Ind.) College at 6 p.m. Then, on Saturday, MVNU will close out pool play at 11 a.m. versus Huntington (Ind.) University. The teams will then be paired up against the team from the other pool that finished with the same record with a match at either 2 or 4 p.m.