With all seven starters and all but one player returning from the 2007 campaign, Anna Tool and the Northwest Missouri State volleyball team are ready to take their show on the road.

The Bearcats will play in the state of New York for the first time in program history when they compete in a Sept. 12 and 13 tournament at Dowling College. The host Golden Lions were 39-8 last season. Northwest will also play Bentley and Adelphi in that tournament.

Northwest begins its season Aug. 29 and 30 with four matches at a tournament at new MIAA member Nebraska-Omaha. The Bearcats won’t face the host Mavericks in that event. Instead, they will host Nebraska-Omaha on Nov. 5.

Northwest’s other regular season tournament date is Sept. 5 and 6, when the Bearcats play NCAA qualifiers Midwestern State and Central Oklahoma, along with Dallas Baptist in a tournament at Missouri Southern.

The addition of Nebraska-Omaha to the MIAA lineup has forced a change in the structure of the conference schedule. Now, teams will play a home-and-away series against all members of the league for 20 total conference matches, up seven from a year ago. Each half of the schedule features five home matches and five road matches.

The conference season begins Sept. 17 at national semifinalist Washburn and ends Nov. 14 at Truman State.

The Bearcats lost only defensive specialist Nicole Wojtowicz from a team laden with underclassmen that finished 17-17 last season. They play in one of the strongest conferences in the nation, with half of the 10 teams finishing in the top 18 of the final national poll.

Gold rush

The Gold Rush in California begins Thursday, and five Bearcat track and field athletes are in the caravan in search of precious medals.

Walnut, Calif., is the site for the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Mt. San Antonio College’s Hilmer Lodge Stadium. The event is hosted by California State Polytechnic University at Pomona.

Audrey Bailey, who qualified in the 400-meter hurdles with the ninth-fastest time in the nation, heads the group. Sprinter John Miles also made the trip as a 100-meter dash competitor and joins teammates Sheldon Cook, E.J. Falkner and Kendall Wright on the 4x100-meter relay team.

Bailey, who is second on the all-time Northwest performance list, ran 1:00.84 in the MIAA Championships on May 5 in Maryville. She will compete in the preliminaries at 5:20 p.m. on Thursday.

Miles ran a school-record 10.48 in the Northwest Open on April 5 to earn a spot in Thursday’s 3:35 p.m. preliminaries.

The 4x100 team is the first Northwest entry to compete, taking the track for its preliminary heat at 2:10 p.m. Thursday. That foursome punched its ticket to California with a school record 40.80 at the Emporia State Twilight Qualifier, which is 10th best in the nation this season.

Ready to kick it

Northwest soccer coach Tracy Hoza announced her team’s 2008 schedule. The Bearcats open the season Aug. 30 against Southwestern Oklahoma on the campus of Newman University in Wichita, Kan., then play the host Jets the next day.

The next weekend, Northwest will host the Bearcat Soccer Classic, facing Northeastern Oklahoma on Sept. 5 and Wayne State on Sept. 7, before heading into conference play.

Two of Northwest’s first five conference games will be against rival Missouri Western, the first on Sept. 13 in St. Joseph and again on Sept. 25 in Maryville.

Northwest rebounded from a sluggish start to win three of its final games of 2007 to finish 6-11-1 overall (5-8-1 MIAA). The Bearcats return seven of their 11 starters, including goalkeeper Lauren Hodgson and leading scorer Amanda Deml.

The nominees are...

Senior basketball guard April Miller and senior first baseman Brit Westman were Northwest’s nominees for the annual Ken B. Jones Award, given by the MIAA for the current academic year’s athletic accomplishments, academic accomplishments, campus/community Service and career athletic, academic and service achievements.

Miller, from Grant City, Mo., went through her college career with a straight-A average and helped her team to the NCAA Tournament as a senior.

Westman, from Smithville, Mo., batted .300 with a team-best 14 home runs, team-best 51 RBIs and was second with 36 runs scored this season. He recently was among three Northwest spring sports athletes to be named to the CoSida Academic All-District Teams.