Southland Conference Weekly Volleyball Update
11/13/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
Nov. 13, 2000
Southwest Texas Unstoppable, Leads Field Into Conference Tournament The Southwest Texas Bobcats owned the Southland Conference during the regular season, finishing with a perfect 20-0 record. They set two Conference records with most match wins in a season (20) and most game wins in a season (60), besting the old mark set by Texas-Arlington's 1998 squad (19 match wins and 59 game wins).
Entering the league's championship tournament this weekend with the No. 1 seeding, Southwest Texas, which is ranked eighth in the Central Region, is riding a 23-match winning streak, the second-longest in the country behind Nebraska (24) and tied with Hawaii. The Bobcats' Laura Ivy has the Southland's best hitting percentage at .383. She led her team last week with 4.12 kills per game, including a career-high 22 kills against McNeese State.
Last year's regular season champion, Texas-San Antonio, is the No. 2 seed. The Roadrunners came on strong in the second half of the schedule to finish with a 17-3 Southland record. Their losses were to SWT and Texas-Arlington, the No. 3 seed. UTSA, which is on an 11-match win streak, is led by the league leaders in assists (Natasha Biggers - 14.59 apg), blocks (Charlsie Heifrin - 1.45 bpg) and digs (Stacy Schmidt - 4.72 dpg). Schmidt recorded her second 30-dig match of the season in the win against Lamar last week. The Southland's 1999 player of the year, Tamara Luckemeyer, posted back-to-back double-doubles (kills-digs) against Sam Houston State and LU.
UTA (16-4) has won its last five in a row. The Mavericks split the season series with UTSA, dropped two to SWT and one to Lamar for their four losses in Conference. Trisha Walker (4.73 kpg), Amber Pack (4.38 dpg) and Kisha Tucker (12.73 apg) are the Mavs' anchors. Pack averaged seven digs per game in a pair of road victories over Louisiana-Monroe and Northwestern State last week. UTA owns a 25-0 all-time record against the Demons, which dates back to 1975.
The defending tournament champion is Stephen F. Austin (13-7), which qualified as the No. 4 seed. The league,s top three teams swept the Ladyjacks in the regular season while McNeese State managed to take a win from them as well. SFA's Kristy Rhodes leads the Southland in kills with an average of 5.56 per game while Marissa Dorcheus averages 14.57 assists per game. In three wins last week, Rhodes tallied 66 kills, including 35 versus Rice in non-conference action and 24 versus Northwestern State, for a .343 hitting percentage. Jenny Orndorff averaged 3.58 dpg.
The final two seeds were determined during the last weekend of play. The host institution, Lamar, secured the No. 5 spot by sweeping Nicholls State Saturday night. LU finished the regular season by blanking Southeastern Louisiana Sunday afternoon. Head coach Jim Barnes picked up his 100th career victory with the win over SLU to bring his career record to 100-65 in five seasons, all with the Cardinals. Shanda Hart paced her team with three straight double-doubles (kills-digs) against UTSA, Nicholls State and SLU. Charyl Norwood had a .325 hit% for 3.6 kpg.
McNeese State also defeated Nicholls, then won a close match over SLU to earn the final berth. In the contest against the Lady Lions, Anissa Parker's 89 attempts were a single-match high and Angela Brittain's 11 digs were a career high. In his 11th season with McNeese, head coach Lee McBride recorded his 200th career victory in the 3-0 win over Nicholls Friday. He is the first Cowgirl volleyball coach to collect 200 career victories and only the third McNeese head coach to reach the 200-win plateau. The Cowgirls are making their 10th Southland tournament appearance during his tenure.
Northwestern State, SLU, SHSU, Nicholls and ULM all finished the 2000 season with losses to the top six teams. The Demons' Missy Krause had a season-high 57 assists against UTA and ended her collegiate career as the school's all-time assists leader for a single game, season and career. Northwestern State ended with its best overall record (14-19) since 1993 and posted the most Conference wins (six) in the program's two decades of volleyball under the guidance of second-year coach James Onikeku.
Looking at the postseason contenders, Southwest Texas leads the league in hit% at .258 while Texas-San Antonio leads in kills (17.73 kpg), assists (15.90 apg) and digs (19.39 dpg). Lamar is the Southland's blocks leader at 2.67 bpg while McNeese State is first in service aces (1.79 sapg), just ahead of LU's 1.78.
Southland Conference Volleyball Championship, Nov. 16-18, Beaumont, Texas Nov. 16 Match #1 - No. 3 Texas-Arlington (16-4) vs. No. 6 McNeese State (11-9), 4:30 p.m. Match #2 - No. 4 Stephen F. Austin (13-7) vs. No. 5 Lamar (12-8), 7 p.m.
Nov. 17 Match #3 - No. 1 Southwest Texas (20-0) vs. Match #2 winner, 4:30 p.m. Match #4 - No. 2 Texas-San Antonio (17-3) vs. Match #1 winner, 7 p.m.
Nov. 18 Championship, 2 p.m. -SLC-
