Tenth ranked spikers host William and Mary

The Cal State Long Beach women's volleyball team will begin a three-match home stand Saturday night with a meeting against William and Mary at the Gold Mine.

The 49ers will then host the University of the Pacific and San Jose State on Oct. 14 and 15 i n the Big West match-ups.

The 49ers (9-3) will enter the match against William and Mary (11-5) as the tenth ranked team in the country. William and Mary is not ranked in the Top 25. The 49ers will try and run its non- conference record to 5-2 with a victory over William and Mary.

The leader of the 49ers offense this season has been senior outside hitter Nichelle Burton, who is hitting .377 with 183 kills. Freshman middle blocker Nique Crump and senior middle blocker Traci Dahl have anchored t he defense with 95 total blocks between them.

CSULB will be looking to shut down the offense of William and Mary's Natalie Kamper and Heather Burke who lead the team with 172 and 146 kills respectively. Burke also leads the team with 62 total bloc ks.

Despite the success of opponents' individual performances 49ers head coach Brian Gimmillaro only worries about his team's performance.

"I generally work on what we do and not what the other teams do," Gimmillaro said.

The Tribe is quart erbacked by Kathy Bell who has 442 assists this year and is backed up by Anne Ashcraft with 174 assists.

By contrast, the 49ers have gotten most of its assists from sophomore defensive specialist Heather Hofmans who has 495 of the team's 566 assist s this year. Hofmans continues to play with a fractured right ring finger.

According to Gimmillaro, many of the players on William and Mary are from California and this game will be a home-coming for them. Gimmillaro says the Tribe is a good team that plays a good all-around game.

"They're kind of a balanced team and their ball control is good," Gimmillaro said.

The 49ers, currently in second place in the Big West Conference behind UC Santa Barbara, lead the conference with a .313 hi tting percentage. CSULB is also fourth in the conference in kills, 15.56 per game and blocks per game with 2.68.