GAC Volleyball Championships - Presented by Subway
CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH
(4) Southern Arkansas (20-13) vs. (3) SWOSU (21-11)
Saturday, November 21st, 2:00 pm
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HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Entering the semifinals of the Great American Conference Volleyball Championships – Presented by Subway on Friday, no number one or two seed had ever been defeated in the round preceding the championship.
That all changed, however, as both of the top seeds were knocked off, leaving an unlikely pairing of No. 3-seed SWOSU and No. 4-seed Southern Arkansas, who will do battle for the conference championship and NCAA Division II Volleyball Championship berth this afternoon at 2:00 pm from Bank of the Ozarks Arena in Hot Springs.
SWOSU defeated Southern Arkansas in five sets back on October 9th at the Pioneer Cellular Event Center, coming from behind to win the final two sets and take the victory 15-6 in the deciding fifth set.
Carly Zak led the Bulldogs with 16 kills and 13 digs, while
Kelsi Schmidtberger had 12 kills and three blocks in the contest. SAU was led in that match by the hitting duo of Shelby Lauterbach and Serena LeDuff, who combined for 39 kills.
LeDuff has been SAU's leader this season and earlier this week she was named the GAC Newcomer of the Year and leading the Muleriders list of four players to earn All-Great American Conference honors with a First Team selection. Other all-conference honorees for SAU include Taylor Reaume, Hannah Rice and Alli O'Banion. The Muleriders advanced to their first GAC Tournament Championship game by defeating the regular season conference champions, Arkansas Tech, in four sets on Friday, one day after they knocked off Harding in a five-set thriller.
SWOSU's path to the Championship match has included a pair of in-state rivals as the Bulldogs defeated Northwestern Oklahoma State 3-1 on Thursday before dispatching of Southern Nazarene – the tournament's number two seed – in straight sets on Friday. A balanced attack by the Bulldogs has been led by
Carly Zak with 31 kills and a .258 hitting percentage, but five other offensive threats have added at least 10 kills over the past two days.
Jill Green has 18 kills in the tournament while
Paige Holt has 15 and just two hitting errors for an astounding hitting percentage of .448 while in Hot Springs.
DeLayni Fine has put down 14 kills and
Kelsi Schmidtberger has 13 with
Kayla Hebert adding 10 in addition to her team-leading 80 assists and 40 digs. Five different players have at least 15 digs at the tournament, led by Hebert and
Kaila Lancaster (30) with Zak,
Ariana Olson and
Lindsey McCauley also providing great defense at the tournament. Schmidtberger has sent back 14 attempts via the assist block the past two days while Zak has nine blocks and Fine six for the tournament.
Saturday's match will be the eighth all-time meeting between SWOSU and Southern Arkansas in volleyball and the third to be played on a neutral court. SWOSU leads the all-time series 4-3, but they teams have split the series 3-3 in league matches over the past four seasons and they have never met in the postseason tournament. The full series history is below:
SWOSU Volleyball All-Time Results vs. Southern Arkansas (4-3) 9/5/2009 vs Southern Arkansas W 3-1 Denton, Texas
*9/16/2011 SOUTHERN ARKANSAS W 3-0 Weatherford, Okla.
*10/14/2011 vs Southern Arkansas L 2-3 El Dorado, Ark.
*9/28/2012 SOUTHERN ARKANSAS L 1-3 Weatherford, Okla.
*10/4/2013 at Southern Arkansas W 3-1 Magnolia, Ark.
*10/3/2014 SOUTHERN ARKANSAS L 1-3 Weatherford, Okla.
*10/9/2015 SOUTHERN ARKANSAS W 3-2 Weatherford, Okla.
Overall: 4-3
Conference: 3-3
Home: 2-2
Away: 1-0
Neutral: 1-1
