PENSACOLA, Fla. - UWF volleyball has announced its 2024 schedule, the 21st season in the tenure of head coach Melissa Wolter. The campaign will start on September 6 after an action-packed summer for the program, as the team will be embarking on a trip to Europe this summer in which the players will be able to scrimmage against some international teams while sightseeing and bonding in other ways. 
 
The 2024 slate includes two home tournaments in the first two weekends of the season that will see the Argos have eight matches spread across a pair of Fridays and Saturdays, with six of those games against fellow participants in the 2023 national tournament, continuing the Argos' trend of frontloading the schedule with national contenders in preparation for Gulf South Conference play and the postseason. The GSC slate will now feature a 20-game double round robin format instead of the 16-game format of the last six seasons, as new conference member Trevecca Nazarene enters the fold in place of Shorter, who joins Conference of the Carolinas this summer, and West Georgia, who announced their move to Division I and the Atlantic Sun Conference last fall. 
 
"We are anxiously awaiting the 2024 season to begin," Coach Wolter says. "The new format of a double round robin GSC schedule will present some new challenges. We have stacked our first couple of weeks of competition with some of the best programs in the nation. We are thrilled to once again be hosting two opening weekend tournaments before turning our attention to some very important region matches on the third weekend. In addition, we will get to play four scrimmages against international competition in early August on our team trip to Europe."
 
First up is the annual season-opening event at the UWF Field House, the SpringHill Suites Invitational, which will go from September 6-7. West Florida welcomes four teams to Pensacola who, like itself, all advanced to their respective regional brackets: MEC Champion Wheeling, the No. 11 team in the final AVCA national rankings in Southwest Minnesota State, SIAC champion Spring Hill and GAC champion Oklahoma Baptist. The Blue and Green will open a fourth straight season against Wheeling and cap off Day 1 with a rematch of a loss last year to SMSU before taking on South Region rival SHC on Saturday and capping off the tournament with OBU. UWF went 3-1 last year against these four squads. 
 
On the next weekend of September 13-14, the Argos will host the Outback Invitational, which will see them take on four more stiff tests against SAC regular season champion Wingate and Spring Hill for the second time in as many weekends on Friday before taking on fellow South Region squad Florida Tech in the afternoon and Northwest Missouri State in the nightcap on Saturday.  
 
The Argos will then travel to Valdosta, Ga., for a weekend as they fit in two more matches against regional teams on a neutral court versus Florida Southern and Tampa, who UWF played in the final edition of the SSC vs. GSC South Region Crossover last season. Each of the SSC squads also played in the 2023 South Regional, and the latter has put UWF out of the national tournament in two of the last three seasons. 
 
The conference schedule begins here, as the Blue and Green start out by hosting Valdosta State, Union and Christian Brothers in the last week of September. The Friday night match against Union will mark the program's third annual Silent Set Night. From October 4-9, the team travels to Alabama to take on three of the GSC schools in the state in Montevallo, Alabama Huntsville and Auburn Montgomery, the latter of whom finished 2023 in the South Region rankings for the first time ever at No. 10. After the AUM match, the Argos return home for their and Wolter's 17th annual Pack-it-Pink Match on Friday night, August 11, as they square off against West Alabama. The team then hosts Mississippi College the next day. 
 
From there, UWF goes on a five-game road stand from October 18-29 that will include all four Tennessee schools and the now-lone Georgia school in the league. The team heads into the Eastern Time Zone to Cleveland, Tenn., to take on Lee on Friday, Oct. 18, before making the long trek northwest to Nashville for the program's first-ever meeting with Trevecca Nazarene the next day. A week later, the team heads back to the Volunteer State as they make the return trip to Christian Brothers in Memphis and Union in Jackson before heading back into Eastern Time on Tuesday, Oct. 29, for the return trip to Valdosta State and their third match of the season on the Blazers' campus.
 
UAH, Montevallo and AUM each head down to Pensacola in the first week of November. On Wednesday, Nov. 6, the Argos host AUM for their Black Out night for the third time and second straight season. Two days later, UWF heads to Clinton, Miss., and Livingston, Ala., to complete the home-and-homes with MC on Friday and UWA on Saturday, respectively. The regular season concludes with Parents Weekend, which starts on the night of Friday, Nov. 15 against Lee and culminates in the Argos' Senior Day match on Saturday versus TNU. 
 
The GSC Championship takes place from Nov. 19-24, with the first round of the eight-team event hosted by the Nos. 5 and 6 seeds before the final three rounds take place on the campus of the regular season champion. The Argos have claimed the regular season title 15 times, hosting the conference tournament in each of the last eight seasons and 11 of the last 12 as they look to increase those numbers by one in 2024. Wherever it's held, however, UWF will look to keep its status as the standard-bearer for the GSC and earn its 13th overall and seventh consecutive conference title.  
 
After a break for Thanksgiving, the NCAA South Regional, which includes the top eight seeds in the region, runs from December 5-8 at the campus of the top seed in the region. The Argos will look to host for the second time and win the bracket and advance to the final site for the first time in their history. The eight regional champions will advance to the Division II Championship from Dec. 12-14 in Sioux Falls, S.D. 
 
"We will get tested early and often this season," Wolter says. "But this is a veteran group with a lot of seniors ready to do something big for our program in the GSC and deep into the postseason."     
 
UWF is coming off a 25-8 season with a 15-1 conference record. The regular season performance culminated in the program's 12th GSC Championship with a sweep in the title game over UAH, who finished No. 9 in the South Region, in which the Blue and Green won the conference with a marathon 35-33 third frame. The win led to an automatic berth for the program's 17th South Regional appearance. They finished 2023 No. 7 in the South Region and No. 20 in the AVCA coaches poll.
 
For more information, please visit GoArgos.com or follow the program at @UWFVolleyball on Facebook, X and Instagram.