Great Falls, Mont. – After a successful weekend at their home tournament, the Argo women's volleyball team has climbed up the national rankings.
University of Providence came in ranked 16
th in the in the first week of the NAIA Women's Volleyball Coaches Top 25 Poll, up five spots from their preseason rank of 21.
"It's awesome. What a great boost," head coach
Arunas Duda said. "It's well-deserved for all the hard work we've put in this preseason. We went and battled some tough teams and came out on top in most of them. We had a couple good road trips for us, and I'm really pleased with how they pushed through in some of those close matches."
The Argos (9-1) were the highest ranked team from the Frontier Conference. Montana Tech (12-2) is ranked 18
th while Rocky Mountain College (8-4) is ranked 23
rd.
"The Frontier teams are really getting out there in this preseason and really challenging ourselves," Duda said. "We're not going out there and playing a bunch of winnable matches. We're challenging ourselves and playing some top 25 teams and going in every direction across the country it seems like."
Eastern Oregon (11-1), who gave Providence their only loss of the season, is ranked 8
th.
"They're a team that we constantly recruit against and a team that we knew we'd have a battle with," Duda said. "They were just a little more mature and a little more put together at this time of the year. They had a lot of returners from last season so it wasn't as big of a surprise to see them competing so well so early on. Hopefully down the road we'll see them again at some point. They're a good quality team so it wasn't a bad loss at all. We learned a lot."
"We had a chance to win that match. The second set was really close. The wheels came off in that third set. After winning that first set, we were right there in the second set. A few points here and there and maybe things change."
The Argos are off for the remainder of this week. They'll return to action for a heavyweight matchup to kick off conference play when they host Montana Tech at 7 p.m. on September 19 in the McLaughlin Center.
"We know that one is going to be a battle," Duda said. "It's nice that it's here at home."
For the complete top 25, visit
https://naia.prestosports.com/sports/wvball/2019-20/releases/1-National-Poll?preview=true
