ABILENE – The Abilene Christian volleyball team heads to San Angelo this week for its 20th and final
Lone Star Conference Championship, where it will meet ninth-ranked West Texas A&M in a first-round match Thursday afternoon at Angelo State's Stephens Arena.
The match between the previous two conference champions starts at 2:30 p.m. and will be aired live via Internet video streaming at
FoxSportsSouthwest.com free of charge. The webcast includes both video and audio, with viewers needing only a computer with a high-speed DSL or cable modem connection to the Internet. Veteran broadcaster Chris Needham will call all seven matches at the tournament, which concludes with Saturday's 2 p.m. championship.
The Lady Buffs (27-4, 17-3 LSC) have won six straight tournament titles - and 14 of the last 17 - with their last five celebrations taking place on their home court. But they lost the right to host this year's championship after finishing a game behind the No. 11 Rambelles (25-4, 18-2 LSC).
Angelo State's championship is its first since 1992, making it the first school other than West Texas A&M to host the tournament since Cameron welcomed the league's top-eight teams in 2006.
ACU won the tournament the last time it played host in 2005, which was the second and final year of its brief reign as conference champion. That year, the Wildcats twice defeated the Lady Buffs en route to winning a program record 31 consecutive matches, but the series completely shifted in WT's favor over the next six seasons (2006-11) as it captured 11 straight series meetings.
WT won this year's first meeting in Canyon in extending its series-winning streak to 12, but the final scores were much closer than expected as head coach Kellen Mock's young team narrowly lost each set (25-23, 25-23, 25-21).
When the teams met again in October at Moody Coliseum, the Wildcats won the first set, 25-17, which was their first vs. WT since 2009, and then after capturing games two and three by scores of 25-22 and 28-26, Mock had her first victory over the Lady Buffs since taking over as head coach in 2006.
Unfortunately for ACU, this epic triumph did not translate into much momentum as it went on to lose six of its next seven matches before finishing the season on a two-match winning streak at Cameron and Midwestern State.
But Mock right now feels good about her team and how it matches up against West Texas.
“It was exciting for our girls to win those last couple of matches and it feels like we're entering the tournament on a little bit of a roll,” she said. “West Texas, historically, has been one of the best teams in all of D-II, and they deserve all praises, but we're confident in who we are and we'll give them everything we've got.”
The Wildcats are led in part by several dynamic individuals who currently rank among the conference leaders. Outside hitters
Sara Oxford and Jennie Loerch rank ninth and 14th, respectively, in kills with per set averages of 3.18 and 2.79, setter
Sarah Siemens is third with 10.57 assists, and libero
Madison Hoover is sixth with 4.87 digs.
ACU also has received quality play this season from veterans
Kalynne Allen and Madison Robinett, who recently became the conference leader in service aces with 0.38 per set. Allen, meanwhile, has been a steady force all year and enters what could be her final week as a student-athlete with 200 kills, 20 aces, 153 digs and 42 blocks. She ranks fourth on the team with 242.5 points and has been a postseason presence for ACU each of her last four years.
“Getting back to the postseason in my final year is huge for me,” she said, “because there were times this year I thought it was going to be hard to do so. But we secured our place and now we go into our match against WT with a clean slate … I'm proud of how far this team has come, and I expect they'll continue to do great things in the future.”
Lone Star Conference Championship matches start Thursday at noon with No. 3 Tarleton State against No. 6 Texas A&M-Kingsville followed by the No. 7 Wildcats and No. 2 Lady Buffs at 2:30 p.m., No. 4 Texas Woman's against No. 5 Texas A&M-Commerce at 5 p.m. and No. 1 Angelo State versus No. 8 Incarnate Word at 7:30 p.m.
Semifinals start Friday at 5 and 7:30 p.m.
