Men’s Vol­ley­ball Pre­pares to Kick Off In­au­gural Sea­son 

MISHAWAKA—Since an­nounc­ing the ad­di­tion of men’s vol­ley­ball in the spring of 2021, the men’s vol­ley­ball pro­gram has re­cruited play­ers, hired its head coach and prac­ticed while wait­ing for com­pe­ti­tion to be­gin. The wait for them is al­most over, how­ever, as the pro­gram will kick off its in­au­gural sea­son on Jan. 27 against Lawrence Tech (Mich.).  

“There’s so much ex­cite­ment and en­thu­si­asm,” Head Coach Eric Sny­der said. “There’s just a gen­eral sense of want­ing to be on the court, and I think our team won’t look like a first-year pro­gram. We’ve set our­selves up from a re­cruit­ing stand­point and a pro­gram stand­point to do pretty well, even in our first year. I think we will put an ex­cit­ing brand of vol­ley­ball on the court.” 

The Pi­lots will com­pete in the Wolver­ine Hoosier Ath­letic Con­fer­ence (WHAC) in their first year. The con­fer­ence al­ready has fa­mil­iar foes for the Pi­lots, such as Mount Ver­non Nazrene and Goshen. The team will play 22 reg­u­lar sea­son games and will host an in­vi­ta­tional in Feb­ru­ary. 

“We like to set high ex­pec­ta­tions no mat­ter what,” Sny­der said. “We have two goals every year, and one is to be re­ally good in the class­room, be­tween a 3.0 and a 3.5 cu­mu­la­tive in the pro­gram, that’s our aca­d­e­mic goal. And then our ath­letic goal is to win the con­fer­ence, no mat­ter what. I don’t care if it’s our first year, sec­ond, third, fourth, it does­n’t mat­ter. It’s a com­pet­i­tive con­fer­ence we’re go­ing into, the WHAC, but I think our goals and ex­pec­ta­tions are set high, and [we’ll] see what hap­pens, be­cause there are very lit­tle ex­pec­ta­tions for us to win in our first year, but we’ve set them for our­selves.”