By The Hays Daily News

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Fort Hays State University volleyball team was picked to finish ninth in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association coaches' poll. Defending champion Truman State (Mo.) University was selected to win the conference, earning five first-place votes and 93 points total.

Fort Hays earned 32 points, two behind Missouri Southern State University. Southwest Baptist (Mo.) University was 10th with 19 points, while Missouri Western State University collected 16.

The Tigers finished 16-17 overall and 2-11 in the MIAA last fall. In the two years since joining the league from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, Fort Hays is 9-42 with a 3-23 record in conference play.

After using divisional play with the conference champion determined by a postseason tournament for the past two seasons, the MIAA will revert to a double round-robin schedule of 20 matches in 2008 to determine its champion, and the tournament has been eliminated.

Among other changes in the sport of volleyball by the NCAA Volleyball Rules Committee are the use of sets instead of game (a match is now best 3-of-5 sets). The number of points needed to win sets one through four has been reduced from 30 to 25, and the number of substitutions per set has been cut from 15 to 12.

The MIAA's region also has transformed -- the conference is still in the South Central region, but the region now includes the Lone Star and Heartland conferences to replace the Gulf South Conference and Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association.

Fort Hays opens its season Aug. 29 against Texas' Abilene Christian in the West Texas A&M tournament in Canyon, Texas.