Men's Volleyball | 1/8/2016 1:51:00 PM

NEWARK, NJ-The NJIT men's volleyball team will open its 2016 season in California, with matches Friday and Saturday in the Asics Invitational, hosted by UC Santa Barbara, which is ranked #9 in the current American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) national Division I-II poll.

Teams from the three largest men's volleyball conferences in NCAA Division I-II men's volleyball are taking part in the Invitational. NJIT and Sacred Heart are representing the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association, the top circuit in the East, while the field also includes teams from the Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (MIVA) and teams from the powerful Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF).

All three opponents for NJIT in this weekend's tournament are from the MPSF, which has dominated men's college volleyball historically. MPSF teams have won the lion's share of NCAA National Championships and usually comprise six or seven of the Top 10 teams in the country.

Penn State, the perennial EIVA champion, and a small handful of the teams from the MIVA have periodically broken the national championship stranglehold of the West Coast teams. In a rarity, two teams from the MIVA-Loyola Chicago and Lewis-were the finalists for the 2015 NCAA championship.

In Friday's opening day, NJIT will take on California Baptist of the MPSF at 10 am (PST) and then host and ninth-ranked UC Santa Barbara at 7 pm (PST). On Saturday, the Highlanders will face Cal State Northridge at 1 pm (PST), before returning home to Newark.

Friday morning's match between NJIT and Cal Baptist is the first of the season for both teams. UC Santa Barbara is 1-1, having split a Midwest trip last weekend when it faced last year's two national finalists. The Gauchos lost at 2105 national runner-up Lewis and defeated 2015 national champion Loyola Chicago. Cal State Northridge comes into the Asics Invitational having won its only against Charleston of the EIVA.

NJIT is beginning its second season under coach Danny Goncalves, who led the team to an 11-13 record in his first season, the best mark for the Highlanders since 2012, when they won 12 matches.

This year's team has a new look in player personnel, with top middle hitter Ryan Thomas, setter Zak Robben, and libero Oren Zyndorf all having graduated. Thomas and Zyndorf were All-EIVA selections and Zyndorf is playing professionally in Israel. Chris Kaepernick, another regular also graduated. He and Robben are graduate assistant coaches.

The cupboard is far from bare, however. Junior Jabarry Goodridge, an All-EIVA selection a year ago and listed on this season's watch list for the Karch Kiraly award as the nation's top outside attacker, is back to lead NJIT's offense.

Goodridge, who hails from Barbados, is one of the top young players internationally in the Caribbean region and has forged a fine college career in which his biggest obstacle has been staying healthy and on the court.

Also back in the fold is redshirt senior and team captain TJ Jurko, who was All-EIVA second team as a freshman and EIVA All-Academic each of the last two seasons. A team leader, Jurko was President of NJIT's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee in 2014-15.

Redshirt junior Luke Robbe, who is 6-foot-8, came to NJIT as a setter, but made the conversion to middle last season and came on strong at his new position, working in tandem with Ryan Thomas.

The first recruiting class for Goncalves and his top assistant, Brennon Dyer, and some holdovers figure to help plug some of the holes left by graduation. Freshman Chris Wise and redshirt freshman Shannon Heckman are in the mix at libero, an exclusively defensive position, and sophomore Cameron Tait looms as a top candidate at setter. Tait was a decorated youth player in his native Australia.

In addition to its 14 EIVA matches, NJIT has stern non-league home tests against Ball State and IPFW of the MIVA, as well as a home match vs. perennial national contender BYU on February 13 at 7:30 pm. BYU of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation won national championships in 1999, 2001, and 2004 and has been ranked in the final National Top Five in 11 other seasons.