LAWTON, Okla. - ACU will put its back-to-back Lone Star Conference volleyball championships on the line this weekend at the LSC Post-Season Tournament, and it all starts with a Thursday night quarterfinal match against Texas Woman's at Cameron University's Aggie Gym.
The Wildcats and Pioneers will play the second match Thursday with the start time set for approximately 7:30 p.m. ACU finished the regular season at 18-9 overall and 8-2 in the LSC South Division to earn the division's No. 2 seed. The Pioneers enter the tournament at 23-11 overall after finishing third in the LSC North Division with a 7-5 record.
Thursday's first quarterfinal match will pit Central Oklahoma (20-10 and 9-3, No. 2 seed in LSC North) against Tarleton State (13-13 and 6-4, No. 3 seed in the LSC South) at 5 p.m. The winner of the ACU-TWU match will take on Cameron at 7:30 p.m. Friday in the semifinals with the winner of the UCO-TSU match taking on LSC South Division champion West Texas A&M at 5 p.m. Friday.
The championship match is set for 7 p.m. Saturday at Aggie Gym, the site in 2004 where ACU won the school's first conference volleyball championship. Current ACU head coach Kellen Mock was the libero on that team that beat Eastern New Mexico in four games in the semifinals and then swept Cameron in three games to win the conference championship.
Thursday's match will be the 27th meeting between the Wildcats and Pioneers since 1983 with the Wildcats holding a 19-7 edge, thanks to a nine-match winning streak that includes a five-game win over TWU back on Oct. 7, in the LSC Crossover Tournament in Kingsville. The last time the Pioneers beat the Wildcats was No. 10, 1995, in the LSC Tournament quarterfinals.
Besides the nine-match winning streak over Texas Woman's, the Wildcats will also carry an 18-match winning streak over LSC North Division opponents into the tournament. The last LSC North Division team to beat ACU was Cameron, and that was a five-game Lady Aggies' win over ACU on Nov. 13, 2003, in the LSC Tournament quarterfinals in Canyon.
ACU enters the post-season tournament having won 15 of its last 17 matches with both losses coming at the hands of West Texas A&M. The Lady Buffs enter the post-season tournament ranked No. 1 in the NCAA Division II Southwest Region, while the Wildcats are No. 2. The conference tournament champions from the LSC, Heartland Conference and Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference will each receive an automatic berth to next week's NCAA Division II Southwest Region Tournament where eight teams from the region will play for the regional championship.
The Wildcats, with their No. 2 regional ranking heading into the conference tournament, are almost a shoe-in to earn a bid to their third straight regional tournament, even without winning the conference championship.
