COVERITLIVE.COM

3:30

We're live courtside at Woodling Gymnasium on the campus of Cleveland State University for today's Horizon League Tournament First Round match between Milwaukee and Green Bay. We're still a little over 30 minutes away from officially getting things started, and I'll have some pregame thoughts and comments for you as the start grows closer.

3:56

The live blog may be the most interesting way to follow today's action ... but please note you can also access gametracker and live video for this match. You can get all of the links right from the volleyball schedule and results on our website - http://www.uwmpanthers.com - or for just the video go to http://www.horizonleaguenetwork.com.

3:57

Milwaukee enters today's contest riding an eight-match winning streak that helped the Panthers go from eighth to third in the league standings. Green Bay, meanwhile, grabbed the sixth seed by winning a tiebreaker with Youngstown State and Loyola. The Phoenix claimed a key win last Friday over Butler that really is what got them in the tournament.

3:59

As you would expect with the results of the last month, the Panthers are feeling good heading into the tournament. Just a month ago, UWM was left wondering if it would even qualify for the tournament, but clearly took its play to another level over the second half of the season. If you want to make it simple, Milwaukee had a stretch nine bad days in the league. The string started with a home loss to Youngstown State Oct. 2 and included road losses to Butler (Oct. 6), Valparaiso (Oct. 7), Cleveland State (Oct. 10) and Wright State (Oct. 11). UWM went 9-1 in the league outside of those nine days.

4:01

The team made the trip here to Cleveland via bus yesterday, getting to town in time for a 6 pm EST practice. Then it was off to dinner at the Winking Lizard - a popular downtown Cleveland spot with an interesting name (do wizards wink or blink? I may have to google that and find out). The team also traded gifts as their traditional secret pals were revealed. Today, just a lot of waiting around, as always seems to be the case on gamedays in every sport when you play at night.

4:02	And, you may note it is past the top of the hour ... things are running behind (I know, first match of the tournament, how can they be running behind already) ... but we'll be underway in about four minutes ... or so.

4:06	They are handing out postseason awards right now before we get to the anthem and starting lineups ... two players from GB and two from Milwaukee (Lauren Felsing and Jena Berg) are being introduced.

4:06	This means I was clearly off with my (hopeful) estimate of four minutes until start time. Maybe four more minutes?

4:09

A small crowd as you might expect with two teams from Wisconsin playing in eastern Ohio at 5 pm EST (or so) on a Friday. Looks like about 15 fans for the Phoenix, and about 20 for the Panthers. Then there is the Hintze family, seated above both groups of fans, cheering for both sides and remaining neutral all at once. In case you don't know, UWM's Lauren Hintze and GB's Nikki Hintze are sisters.

4:09

Anthem

Page 1 Next >