Virginia Travels to VCU Invitational This Weekend

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Sept. 18, 2014

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.-The Virginia volleyball team (6-3) travels to Richmond, Virginia, for the VCU Invitational this weekend. The Cavaliers face Ball State on Friday (Sept. 19) at 5 p.m., before playing East Tennessee State and the host Rams on Saturday (Sept. 20) at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively.

Live statistics will be available for all three matches through VirginiaSports.com. Live video will also be available for the VCU match (subscription required) through VirginiaSports.com.

The Cavaliers dropped three games at the Wildcat Classic Sept. 12-13 in Evanston, Illinois, after starting the season 6-0, the program’s best start since 2003. UVa fell to Loyola Chicago, 3-2, and Youngstown State, 3-2, on Friday before a 3-0 loss to tournament-host Northwestern on Saturday.

Junior Natalie Bausback (Carlsbad, Calif.) leads the team with a .404 hitting percentage and 1.39 blocks per set. Fellow junior Kayla Sears (Moorpark, Calif.) leads the squad with 3.61 kills per set.

Ball State won its last match, 3-2, over IPFW on Wednesday to improve to 4-6 on the season. This will be the first-ever meeting between Ball State and UVa.

East Tennessee (4-7) comes into the weekend following a 3-1 loss at Tennessee State on Tuesday. Virginia and East Tennessee State have met four times with both teams winning twice. They last met in 1989, a 3-0 victory for the Cavaliers in Charlottesville.

VCU (2-7) went 1-2 last weekend at the Carolina Classic in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, defeating Georgia Southern, 3-1, before falling to both Kentucky and UNC by a score of 3-0. Virginia holds a 20-13 all-time record against VCU, but the Rams won the last meeting, 3-2, in 2012 in Richmond, which snapped a 15-match winning streak for UVa in the series.

Up next, the Cavaliers travel to Lynchburg, Virginia, to face Liberty on Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. The match will be broadcast live on ESPN3.