The Pac-12 officially announced the schedule for the 2021 volleyball season on Tuesday. The season will kick-off for WSU on Jan. 22, as they host the Oregon Ducks.

The season will be unlike any previous volleyball season, as the regular season will consist of only conference matchups. Additionally, instead of playing both home and away against every conference foe, teams will play two-game series over the same weekend either home or away against every team.

The volleyball season usually takes place during the fall, but it was postponed due to the pandemic, making this even more of an unprecedented season.

WSU will host Oregon on Jan. 22 and 24 before heading on the road to face Arizona State University the following weekend. Following the meetings with the Sun Devils, WSU will host UCLA and Colorado in back-to-back weeks.

A key date to look at is the March 19 and 21 meetings against in-state rivals, University of Washington, who will visit Pullman for the series. Last season, WSU was able to sweep the two meetings with the Huskies.

The team as a whole is very young, with eight freshmen and seven sophomores, as well as just one junior and one senior. One of the sophomores WSU is bringing back is Magda Jehlarova, who was named National Freshman of the Year, a second-team All-American, and a first-team All-Pac-12 player in her first season.

WSU comes into this season sitting just outside the Top 25, having received the most votes of any team not in the preseason top 25 rankings.

The Cougars are coming off of a 23-10 season that saw WSU make the NCAA Tournament, but exiting after a first-round matchup with the University of San Diego. WSU will look to get things off to a hot start 1 p.m. Friday against Oregon. The game will play live on the Pac-12 Network.