CARROLLTON, Ga. - The 2026 volleyball season began with a thrilling, 3-0 sweep of Northwestern State on Friday afternoon as head coach Adam Milewski won in his UWG debut in the opener of this weekend's tournament at The Coliseum.
"It was really a lot of fun to be in the Coliseum, get all of our fans out here," said Milewski. "We had a little exhibition earlier, but being the real thing, it felt great."
West Georgia (1-0) hit .295 as a team in the win and forced 17 attack errors from Northwestern State (0-1). The Wolves were led by a 14-kill performance from Valiree Schmus while Grace-Blythe Cornett had 10 and Brooke McCall had nine.
"I think we had some confidence there, and it was really good to see our offense starting to click, and getting some production from our pins," Milewski added. "We've got to continue to figure out ways to win games. It's still early, obviously, in the season. I'd like to see us be a little cleaner at the end of that last game, but overall, it's a good foundation for us to build on."
UWG's defense spread 46 digs across 10 players with five recording at least seven digs. Giorgia Mandotti led with nine digs while Anežka Ouředníková had a team-high 29 assists.
The Milewski era opened with West Georgia scoring four straight points to open the weekend and season's first match. Northwestern State battled back to eventually cut the deficit back to one at 7-6 before UWG stretched the advantage back to six at the 15-9 mark and forced Northwestern to call a timeout.
West Georgia eventually got their advantage to as much as 11 and behind three kills from Cornett and three blocks from Milena Ćetković, the Wolves cruised to a 25-17 victory in the opening set.
Set two started with Northwestern jumping out to an early lead, forcing UWG to call a timeout trailing 8-4. West Georgia came out with renewed energy and took their first lead of the game at 11-10 on a Schmus kill. The Wolves hit .375 in the second set and Schmus led the way, putting down seven kills in the frame.
In the third, it started back and forth until a 5-1 run put the Wolves up 13-8. After UWG went up 19-14, Northwestern State rattled off a 4-1 run of their own and Milewski took a timeout with a two-point lead.
Facing defeat, Northwestern State hung in there winning three straight match points to pull back within one at 24-23. Milewski called a timeout and Northwestern then had an attack error to end the set and the match.
"Just keep building on what we've done. We talk about it all the time. This is the very base for us, and so this is where we have to be consistent from," Milewski concluded. "We've got to build on, and the next game needs to be cleaner in certain areas of the match. I think they have a good understanding of what we're really asking for, and they're starting to execute it at a higher level."
West Georgia returns to action tonight in game two of the weekend, hosting Grambling State at 6 p.m. at The Coliseum.
