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SALT LAKE CITY – The Westminster College women's volleyball team will play four teams from the Golden State Athletic Conference at this weekend's Asics/Crowne Plaza Labor Day Tournament in Irvine, Calif. Westminster will face No. 5 Biola and No. 6 Azusa Pacific on Friday, September 2. They will then play No. 1 Fresno Pacific and San Diego Christian on Saturday, September 3.

Game Coverage
At this time there will not be live stats or video streaming available for the matches this weekend. If something changes, all of the links will be available at WestminsterGriffins.com.

Griffin Notebook
Westminster enters the tournament after going 2-2 at last week's Bison Blast in Oklahoma. They picked up victories over William Woods and John Brown while dropping matches to No. 4 Texas at Brownsville and No. 19 Oklahoma Baptist.

Ashley Marchant leads the team with 45 kills while hitting .197 through the opening weekend. She posted three double-doubles and has posted 50 digs. Emily Atkinson also had three double-doubles at the Bison Blast and finished with 144 assists and 44 digs.

Friday's Opponent: No. 5 Biola
Biola enters the weekend with a 5-3 overall record and a No. 5 national ranking. The Eagles have dropped two straight matches after a five-match winning streak. They have a 0-2 record against teams from the Frontier Conference, dropping matches to Rocky Mountain and Lewis-Clark State.

Christine Douglas leads the team with 100 kills and averages 3.7 per set. Nicolette Mather is hitting a team-best .320 to start the year and Rachel Buckley has recorded 24 blocks. Emily Weingartner averages 4.2 digs per set while setter Gracee Gallarda leads Biola with 145 assists.

Friday's Opponent: No. 6 Azusa Pacific
Azusa Pacific has started the year with seven consecutive wins and is ranked sixth in the preseason top 25 poll. The Cougars have recorded five 3-0 sweeps and two wins in four sets.

Whitney Radcliffe is averaging 5.0 kills per set with a .397 hitting efficiency. Radcliffe has totaled 90 kills in the seven matches with just 13 hitting errors. Raechel Jones has picked up 11 service aces with Robin Portela popping up 7.2 digs per set to rank seventh nationally.

Saturday's Opponent: No. 1 Fresno Pacific
The four-time defending NAIA national champions opened the year with two straight losses. The preseason No. 1 team lost consecutive games for the first time since 2004 and only suffered two losses in 2010.

Kathleen Anderson leads the Sunbirds with 33 kills and is followed closely by Jessie Alcorn with 28. Anderson is hitting .360 on the young season. Emily Carroll has dished out 88 assists and is averaging 9.8 per set. Martina Gregusova and Erica Adachi have picked up 34 and 29 digs respectively.

Saturday's Opponent: San Diego Christian
After starting the year with three straight losses, San Diego Christian will enter this week's tournament riding a two-match winning streak. The Hawks picked up five-set wins over Simpson and Cardinal Stritch to complete last week's play.

Lauren Howard is tops on the team with 71 kills and is averaging 3.38 kills per set. Terra Klem has posted 11 service aces to start the year while Stephanie Rice has posted 69 digs. Cassidy Mertens averages 4.7 assists per set and Rachel Allen averages 3.9.

Getting Defensive
Westminster was on the defensive all weekend at the Bison Blast. The Griffins recorded 291 digs in the four matches and are averaging 19.4 digs per set. The team ranks 14th in the NAIA with that average and the 291 total digs are 41st nationally. Libero Kyndall Kordakis ranks second in the Frontier with her average of 4.5 per set and had double figures in digs during all four matches.

Chasing Milestones
Sophomores Atkinson and Kordakis are each approaching personal career milestones. Atkinson sits just 33 assists shy of becoming just the third Griffin in school history to reach 1,000 career assists. She is averaging a Frontier-best 10.3 assists per set and has 144 through the first four matches this year.

Kordakis is 40 digs away from 500 for her career. Only seven players have reached 500 career digs at Westminster and she needs to reach 519 total digs to move into sixth all-time.

Griffins Picked for Fourth
The Westminster College women's volleyball team was tabbed to finish fourth in the Frontier Conference by the league's coaches in their preseason poll, which was recently released.

The Griffins received 31 points in the poll to come in the same spot they ended the 2010 regular season. Lewis-Clark State received five of the eight first-place votes (coaches weren't allowed to vote for their own team) to finish with 46 points.

Tough Slate
Westminster has once again compiled one of the toughest schedules in the country. The Griffins will face eight teams that are ranked in the Tachikara-NAIA Volleyball Coaches' Top 25 Preseason Poll. The schedule features seven teams that qualified for the 2010 NAIA National Championships along with four matches against teams from the Golden State Athletic Conference. The non-conference slate also features a home-and-home with the College of Idaho and a home match with NCAA DII foe Mesa State.

Watch the Griffins Online
Westminster is pleased to announce that all nine Griffin home volleyball matches will be available to watch live on Griffins TV. Westminster, along with the Victory Sports Network, have created a channel on Livestream to become the new online streaming home of the Westminster Griffins. Fans can access the channel at WestminsterGriffins.com or at Livestream.com/griffins.