PRINCESS ANNE, Maryland — After missing the court for nearly two years, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore volleyball team will be in action this weekend (August 27-28) in the Fairleigh Dickinson Tournament in Hackensack, New Jersey. The Shore will play against Robert Morris, Fairleigh Dickinson and Manhattan in the tournament.
"It feels good to get a chance to be competitive again," head coach Trevor Callarman said. "We have trained and been practicing, but it means more when you actually have an opponent on the other side on the net."
The last time the Hawks were on the court for a match was on November 22, 2019, when they fell to North Carolina A&T in the quarterfinals on the MEAC Tournament. This year's team will look a lot different from the one that walked off the court that night as the roster boast 16 players and only six – Mauri Carver, Alexis Lee, Stella Johnson, Sydney Morris, Tijana Korosec and Marina Cruz – remain from the squad from two years ago. With that, Cruz only saw action in one match early in the season before injury sidelined her for the majority of the 2019 campaign. The other 10 members of this year's squad will be seeing their first action in maroon and gray on Friday.
Maryland Eastern Shore has three transfer players that have already competed at the college level. Sophomore Maya Hendricks played at Tennessee State for one season, junior Sophia Chacon comes to the Hawks after two seasons at UTEP and junior Derionah Abner is in Princess Anne after two seasons at Daytona State.
Sophomores Jalynn Robinson, Portia Strasburg, Yazmyn Stewart and Lyric Snowden were all a part of the program last school year even though the team did not compete. Freshmen Charlize Williams, Ranyla Griggs and Soleil Cotton are only a few months removed from high school graduation.
"We are expecting a lot of depth on the team this year," Callarman said. "We have so much talent right now, so the goal is to always put the best team out there."
The team's first match of the tournament will be Friday (August 27) versus Robert Morris at 3:30 p.m. The next day they will play the host Fairleigh Dickinson at 12:30 p.m. before closing out the day with Manhattan at 3:30 p.m.
"A big thing for us this weekend is making sure we stay disciplined and our systems look good," Callarman said. "We have a personal goal within the team to win the tournament, but we believe that if we are diligent about getting everybody on the same page the wins will take care of themselves."
All matches will have live stats and be streamed. Links for both stats and video will be on the Hawks website at easternshorehawks.com on the volleyball schedule page.
