MWC Volleyball Championship To Be Televised Live On Fox Sports Net

Bill Doleman and Amy Gant to call the action

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Commissioner Craig Thompson announced that for the first time in the history of the Mountain West Conference, the MWC Volleyball Tournament Championship Game will be televised live regionally on Fox Sports Net. The coverage area includes Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, as well as parts of Montana, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska and Nevada. The telecast will also be available to a national audience on FSN to DirecTV and Echostar subscribers.

Early round conference tournament matches will be seen on cable systems throughout the Mountain West Conference region. Specific affiliates and telecast times will be announced at a later date.

The Mountain West Conference Television Network will be the production entity for the 2002 MWC Volleyball Championship, to be held Nov. 21-23 at Moby Arena in Fort Collins, Colo. The MWC office will handle all aspects of the telecasts, from production and clearances to hiring talent for every match. The telecasts will begin with first-round matches Thursday, Nov. 21 and conclude with the championship Saturday, Nov. 23. This marks the first in-house production venture by the Mountain West Conference.

"The Mountain West Conference has taken another significant step forward in volleyball," said Thompson. "As one of the top collegiate volleyball conferences in the country, our student-athletes are deserving of the television coverage for their sport's premier event."

A record four MWC teams participated in the 2001 NCAA Tournament and the winner of the 2002 MWC Championship will earn the league's automatic bid to this year's NCAA field. The MWC has sent two teams to the NCAA Sweet 16 each of the last three years and has a postseason record of 14-10 in that span.

"We're excited to offer viewers the opportunity to see a championship match that ultimately gives the winner an automatic berth to the prestigious NCAA women's volleyball tournament," said Tim Griggs, Vice President/General Manager, Fox Sports Net Rocky Mountain. "I'm pleased that Fox Sports Net is able to provide a wide variety of quality local sports programming for sports fans in this region."

Bill Doleman will call the play-by-play and Amy Gant will be the color analyst. A native of Fairbury, Neb., Doleman is a veteran sportscaster whose career as a free-lance announcer has taken him from small-market public television to the national networks and several points in between. Named the Nebraska Sportscaster of the Year in 1998, Doleman has called games for ABC Sports, Fox Sports Net and the ESPN networks. A graduate of the University of Nebraska, Doleman was the play-by-play announcer for the 2002 State Farm NACWAA Volleyball Classic held in Minneapolis.

Gant, a 1998 graduate of BYU, brings an extensive volleyball background to television. She was a three-time All-American for the Cougars and played for the U.S. National Team from January 1998 to September 1999. An NCAA Woman of the Year top 10 finalist in 1998, Gant was the color analyst for the 2000 Mountain West Conference Volleyball Championship.

Colorado State University will host the championship for the second time in three years. Listed below is a complete schedule (all times MST and subject to change):

Thursday, Nov. 21    Quarterfinal #1, 11 a.m. (*MWC-TV)
                     Quarterfinal #2, 1:30 p.m. (*MWC-TV)
                     Quarterfinal #3, 4 p.m. (*MWC-TV)
                     Quarterfinal #4, 7 p.m. (*MWC-TV)
Friday, Nov. 22      Semifinal #1, 4 p.m. (*MWC-TV)
                     Semifinal #2, 7 p.m. (*MWC-TV)
Saturday, Nov. 23    Championship, 2 p.m. (Fox Sports Net)