Past years recruiting has reaped this year’s rewards, as a team that was comprised of 50 percent freshmen last year has now become a PAC-12 vetted contender.

With 14 returning players, including all six starters, the familiar faces of the WSU women’s volleyball team will start the 2016-17 season in West Lafayette, Indiana where the Cougs will compete in the Purdue Mortar Board Premier Tournament. The tournament starts Friday morning and will run through Saturday afternoon.

WSU’s first match is against No. 24 University of Kentucky at 9 a.m. , followed by an evening game against the tournament hosts, No. 20 Purdue University at 4:30 p.m. Play continues for the Cougs Saturday morning when they take on the University of Wyoming at 10 a.m. to conclude the opening preseason tournament.

Though facing a daunting tournament, and first chance for 2016-17 rankings to be established in the PAC-12, Head Coach Jen Greeny is confident in her team.

“Last year we had a huge class of freshmen, and now they all have a year of playing under their belt,” senior setter Haley Macdonald said. “We are used to playing with them.”

Greeny said she plans on building team chemistry after a fall season that she called “the best fall practice since we took over the team”.

“When you are a returner, you know the expectations, you know the drills. You can really get right into things,” Greeny said in a news release with wsucougars.com Tuesday afternoon.

With the team returning a majority of its players, the team looks to improve its schematics.

“We are trying a different system, so it will open up new opportunities that we never have been able to experience.” Macdonald said, “In the preseason, you are going to see lots of change in the rotation, and that’s going to open up more hitters in the front row.”

However, as both Macdonald and Greeny agree, the Cougars are eager to start the season.

Junior outside hitter for Kentucky, Anni Thomasson, will test WSU in their matchup Friday. Thommasson is UK’s biggest threat to WSU and will attempt to join just two other athletes at UK to break 1000 collegiate career kills.

Big hitters like this hardly phase Macdonald, she said.

“We like to serve them a lot. We also like to over-load them on the blocks,” she said

Wyoming will be the only team at this tournament that the Cougars have previously played against. The teams last met in the preseason of the 2014-15 season, when the Cougs lost 0-3.

Recalling her last encounter with Wyoming, Macdonald said that they like to run a very fast-paced game, but said that she hopes that her team will stick to their game plan throughout the tournament.

“In practice, there’s no hesitation, we just getting after it,” Macdonald said, “And if that were to change for the tournament, that would be the only way I would be disappointed.”

Live streaming of the matches can be found on the PAC-12 Network website.