MARQUETTE – The Northern Michigan University volleyball team lost no seniors while returning two All-GLIAC players as head coach Dominic Yoder announced the team’s schedule recently.

The Wildcats were just 14-14 overall, but posted a 14-4 record in the GLIAC regular season, third in the North Division and fourth overall in the 16-school league.

Yoder will enter his ninth season as head coach with a pair of seniors who earned top league mention – Alex Burger, who was All-GLIAC First Team, and Lisa Studnicka, who earned All-GLIAC Second Team honors.

Northern opens its season by cohosting the Wildcat Open on Labor Day weekend from Sept. 3-5 at Vandament Arena. Michigan Tech is the other cohost.

NMU faces Lake Superior State in an nonconference match at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 3, before taking on Cedarville, Ohio, on Sept. 4 and Upper Iowa and Fort Hays State, Kansas, on Sept. 5.

The Wildcats travel to Upper Iowa for four matches in two days at a tournament there the following weekend before returning to Marquette to begin the conference season with five straight home matches from Sept. 18-29, including Michigan Tech on Tuesday, Sept. 29.

The rest of the season consists of GLIAC matches plus the GLIAC-Great Lakes Valley Conference Crossover Tournament to take place at Naperville, Illinois, for three matches over two days.

Northern’s final home weekend, Oct. 30 vs. Grand Valley State and Oct. 31 vs. Ferris State, is Parents Weekend with Senior Night during the latter match.

To balance the five home matches to start the conference season, the Wildcats have five straight road matches to end the GLIAC season and regular season from Nov. 3-14, beginning with MTU on Nov. 3 and ending with Northwood on Saturday, Nov. 14.

The GLIAC Tournament is scheduled to start with the quarterfinals on Wednesday, Nov. 18, in all likelihood at the site of the top four seeds in the conference.

The full NMU schedule is available online at www.nmuwildcats.com/sports/wvball/2015-16/schedule.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@ miningjournal.net.