MOSCOW, Idaho - Coming off one of the strongest opening weekends for the program in some time, Idaho Volleyball will continue the non-conference slate in the Centennial State, heading to the Denver Invitational hosted by the University of Denver.

The Vandals earned a thrilling reverse sweep over CAA powerhouse Towson to open the season and swept Western Illinois to close out the weekend. This week, they will see one opponent for the first time in program history and another for the second, highlighting a strong slate in Colorado.

ABOUT MARIST
Thursday will mark the first-ever matchup between Idaho and Marist. The Red Foxes (0-3) opened their season at the Lafayette College Invitational in Easton, PA, where they nearly pulled off the reverse sweep vs. Montana State before falling in the fifth set. 

UM finished 10-20 in 2025, doing most of their best work in MAAC play, where they finished 8-10. They will be led by first-year head coach Annie DeLoid, who comes to Poughkeepsie after four seasons at Union College, developing the Garnet Chargers to a DIII contender with a 22-9 campaign in 2025, the first top-two finish for the program since 2015.

ABOUT DENVER
Denver has gotten off to a strong start to the 2026 campaign, opening the season in Boulder for Colorado's round-robin. They knocked off Central Arkansas to open the year and took down Cal State Northridge in a five-set thriller before falling to #23 Colorado. 

The Pioneers are coming off of a 17-11 2025 campaign that featured wins over Arkansas, Air Force, and Northern Colorado. They finished 9-7 in Summit League matches before narrowly falling to North Dakota State to close the year. They are led by Megan Pendergast in her fourth season. Under her leadership, Denver has seen consistent improvement every season, rising from 13 wins to 17 and now a 2-1 start to the non-conference slate.

ABOUT SIUE
Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville (SIUE) will share the court with the Vandals for just the second time ever, and the first since 2023, when Idaho faced off with the Cougars at their Invitational in Edwardsville.

SIUE dropped their first three matches of Week 1 at the Arkansas Invite, although the latter two of them did go to five sets, vs UT Arlington and UTSA. In 2025, they finished with a 12-17 regular season record that was aided by non-conference wins over Air Force, Austin Peay, and Seattle U. Head coach Kendall Paulus has been with the program since 2017, and was an assistant for six seasons prior to that. SIUE has been a consistent Ohio Valley tournament contender in her tenure, including a top-100 RPI in 2016.  

UP NEXT
Idaho will hit the road again for Week 3, westbound to California for the CBU Challenge, hosted by Cal Baptist and featuring Sacred Heart and North Dakota.

FOLLOW THE VANDALS
To stay up to date with Vandal Volleyball, follow the team on Instagram (vandalvolleyball), X (IdahoVolleyball) and visit govandals.com