ABILENE – Abilene Christian volleyball heads to Natchitoches, La., and the campus of Northwestern State University later this week for the Southland Conference Tournament, where it will look to duplicate soccer's recent championship run in qualifying for the NCAA Championship.
Volleyball made history at last fall's postseason gathering in becoming the Southland's first No. 8 seed to advance past the first round. They defeated top-seeded Stephen F. Austin, 3-2, in their quarterfinal match and later toppled fourth-seeded Houston Baptist, 3-1, in reaching the final where they lost in three to No. 2 Central Arkansas.
This year, ACU (13-15, 10-6 Southland) begins the tournament seeded fourth and probably will have to face the same series of opponents starting with the fifth-seeded Huskies, who the Wildcats will meet for the third time this season Friday at 1:30 p.m. HBU and ACU split their season series at one match apiece as each team won on its home court. The Wildcats produced a stunning fifth-set rally to edge the Huskies at Moody Coliseum, 3-2, but lost the rematch, 3-1, two weeks later at Sharp Gym.
HBU leads the all-time series 6-3 with the two teams alternating victories over the last three seasons.
Waiting on the Wildcats / Huskies winner in the Saturday semifinals likely will be the aforementioned Ladyjacks, which won all 16 of its conference matches as part of their current 26-match winning streak. SFA only has lost two matches this season, both coming in Hamilton N.Y. at the tail end of August to Princeton (3-0) and Northwestern (3-1).
The Ladyjacks battle Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the first of four quarterfinal matches Friday (11 a.m.) at Prather Coliseum, while the bottom half of the bracket is composed of No. 3 Sam Houston State vs. No. 6 McNeese (4 p.m.) and No. 2 Central Arkansas vs. No. 7 Northwestern State (6:30 p.m.). The Bears' only two losses this season were to SFA, while the three-loss Bearkats fell late in the year to UCA and SFA in addition to suffering an early-season setback to Incarnate Word.
The Southland's top-three seeds all won over 20 matches this season, but it's doubtful the Southland will send more than its tournament winner to the NCAA Championship.
The quarterfinal and semifinal rounds of tournament play will be streamed live on the Southland Conference Digital Network, available at
southland.org/live and the league's apps, available for phones, tablets, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Roku. The championship match will be an exclusive presentation of ESPN+, available via the ESPN app.
Semifinal rounds take place Saturday, Nov. 17 at noon and 2:30 p.m. The championship will be held Sunday, Nov. 18, with a 3:05 p.m. first serve.
