MONTGOMERY—Alabama State University will continue its early season run of tournaments when they head out west to the campus of Washington State University to participate in the Cougar Challenge.  The Challenge will be take place on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 31-Sept. 1 in Bohler Gymnasium.
 
The Lady Hornets will take a step up in the competition they will be facing at the Cougar Challenge.  Along with ASU and the host Washington State, Weber State and Seattle University will round out the four teams playing in the Challenge.
 
“We are definitely stepping up in competition,” Head Coach Penny Lucas-White said.  “Our girls are going to really grow up this weekend.  They must show up and compete and they have to play every ball as though it is match point.  When we get that mentality, where every ball is match point, we will become better as a whole and that is our goal to compete as if every ball is match point.”
 
Each team will play twice on Friday with ASU and the Lady Cougars opening the Challenge on at 1 p.m. (CT).  ASU's second match of the day will have them facing Weber State at 5 p.m. (CT).
 
Each team will only play once on Saturday, with the Lady Hornets facing off against Seattle University in the day's first action at 5 p.m. (CT).
 
ASU (0-4) enters the tournament searching for their first win of the young season while Washington State and Weber State are 1-2.  Seattle will come into the tournament with a 2-2 record.
 
Last week Head Coach Penny Lucas-White started five freshmen and a sophomore throughout the ISTAP Collegiate Cup and freshman Rachel Smith responded with 36 kills and 31 digs in the tournament.  She was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) Newcomer of the Week by the league office earlier in the week.
 
Another freshman, Amber Bennett, also had a solid tournament.  She completed play with 24 kills, 10 blocks (1 Solo, 9 Ast.) and a team-high five service aces.  Junior Luiza Griz led the team with 51 digs and sophomore Brooke Beasley had 100 assists
 
Smith recorded a double-double in her first collegiate action, a 13-kill, 11-digs performance against Southeastern Louisiana.  Beasley also had a double-double over the weekend with 27 assists and 10 digs against Stetson.
 
After dropping all of the matches last weekend, the coaching staff is looking for a way to generate more offense and will try a different offensive approach this weekend.
 
“I want to run a fast offense and I think the girls actually made some of the things happen on offense we wanted to happen, but you will find I have changed the offense from a 5-1 to a 6-2 to try and help us have more attackers,” Head Coach Penny Lucas-White said.  “I believe in attack, attack, attack and we need to become a little more seasoned and until that happens I need more offensive weapons on the floor.”
 
“My goal is we are hitting a higher percentage on the team as a whole and not just one hitter, but as a team.  I want us attacking more and scoring more points.
 
The coaching staff saw plenty of positives to come out of last weekend and with the team being so young the coaching staff knows they have plenty to build on.
 
“I saw a ton of things we are able to build on,” Lucas-White said.  “What we worked on in practice is that we slowed everything down and we showed them how they looked on the video and that was a huge eye-opener.  We spent some time with the girls watching video and I think things got better from that point on.”
 
Live stats will be carried for each match.  Check out Game Day Central at www.bamastatesports.com to keep up with the action.