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LYNCHBURG, Va. – The Fairleigh Dickinson volleyball team will open the 2015 season on Friday, August 28 at the Liberty Invitational presented by La Quinta Inns & Suites.  The Knights will play three matches over the two-day tournament, including a Saturday afternoon contest against Liberty that will be seen live on ESPN3 and the Big South Network.

The Knights will open the tournament against Hampton on Friday.  That match is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m.

The following day at 12:30 p.m., FDU will face the host Flames.  Fans can watch that match live (online) on the Big South Network or ESPN3.com.

FDU will warp-up its first weekend of action against UNC Greensboro with a 4:30 p.m. match on Saturday.
Now in her 25^th season at FDU, Stacey Recanati will lead a 13-member squad into the 2015 season.  The Knights' roster includes eight sophomores and freshmen this season, but the group is still experienced and features strong veteran leadership. 

"We have a lot of upper classman this year, which is a difference from years prior.  Now we are starting to get a little more upper classmen leadership on the court," Recanati said during the final week of preseason practice.  "We still have five sophomores and three freshman, so we are still on the younger side, but those five sophomores had a lot of nice playing time last year so we are really looking forward to them producing more this year and becoming an important part of our lineup as the season goes through."

In addition, the FDU squad should be versatile this year with many players able to help the team in multiple ways.

"This weekend I really expect to use a lot of lineups.  I'm going to move people in and out of the lineups," Recanati added.  "In years past we had certain players that played certain roles and we kind of knew where they would be because we didn't have the option to put them anywhere else.  Now we have options to put people wherever we want to put them and be confident that they are going to do well in those positions."

The Knights will face a challenging non-conference slate to open the season, but Coach Recanati is pleased with the way the team prepared during the off season.

"Our girls came in really good shape this year, which shows that they really worked hard over the summer to get where they need to be to start the season strong."

The Knights will be on the road again on next weekend, but will host Quinnipiac the following Wednesday (Sept. 9) at the Stratis Arena inside the Rothman Center.  That match is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start.