ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF volleyball team will host its annual Black and Gold Scrimmage on Saturday, Aug. 21st, at 7:00 pm from The Venue. Admission to the event is free.
The intrasquad scrimmage will wrap up the two weeks of preseason practice before the three-time defending American Athletic Conference champions face a challenging slate this fall.
"We have some pretty heavy positional battles going on right now," Head Coach Todd Dagenais, "It's nice to have that because there are so many things we can do with this group having the numbers, the depth, and so much experience. I'm confident that each player will go in and do their jobs because they are doing it here in practice.
"Fans that come tomorrow are really going to enjoy this team," Dagenais added, "We are more athletic, we are quicker, more of a defensive team, and probably the hardest serving team that I have had since being here. They are going to see two teams going after it and a preview of what our mantra is going to be—serve, block, defense, and score. Scoring is going to come naturally to us because it's something we are good at, but defense, serving, and blocking is going to be a focus all year long. It will decide who is going to win and lose each match."
The Knights will then open the regular season next week at home at the UCF Challenge on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 27-28, against two AVCA preseason top 25 teams, Penn State and Georgia Tech, as well as St. John's.
PRESEASON FAVORITES
In case you missed it, the Knights were selected to win the American Athletic Conference again in 2021 as the conference released its Preseason Volleyball Coaches' Poll on Wednesday. The preseason rankings were voted on by the conference's 11 head coaches. In addition to being selected as preseason favorites, UCF senior McKenna Melville was unanimously selected as the Preseason Player of the Year in the conference for the second year in a row. Melville, along with teammate Anne-Marie Watson, were both named to the Preseason All-Conference Team.
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