The regular season may have ended, but the fun is only just beginning for the ACU Wildcat volleyball team.
“We’ve had an outstanding year,” said head coach Kellen Mock. “We are 25-4 and I couldn’t be happier with how this team has played.”
Over the weekend the Wildcats will try to make it to the Lone Star Conference Tournament championship for the second straight year. Even though they aren’t the top seed or host of the tournament, ACU sits in a great position in the bracket.
By getting the second seed, the ‘Cats will avoid having to play rival West Texas A&M until the championship game. In their side of the bracket, the Wildcats have only lost one set out of four matches during the regular season.
[Paragraph about the Wildcats win on Thursday against Texas Woman’s]
With the win, the Wildcats will face third-seed Angelo State at 5 p.m. Friday in the second round of the tournament. ACU has already seen the Rambelles twice this season and had little trouble dismantling them.
“Angelo will really be gunning for us cause we’ve swept them twice already,” said student coach Daniel Graves. “But it doesn’t really matter who is on the other side of the net. If we play our game we will come out on top.”
Both matches went to the Wildcats, 3-0. Angelo only lost three games to other teams from the LSC, with two of them coming at the hands of Coach Mock’s squad. After losing to ACU for the second time in the beginning of October, the Rambelles went more than a month before their next loss, a 0-3 defeat against West Texas.
ACU beat Angelo in the second round last year and went to the LSC tournament championship last year, but it fell to WT in the finals, 3-1.
With 80 straight wins against LSC opponents, the Buffs are almost assuredly going to the championship game. If the Wildcats also get to the championship, they will have to find a way to beat WT for the first time in five years.
“If and when we make it to the conference finals, then when can deal with WT again,” Mock said. “Until then we have to focus on beating one team at a time and doing it the way we have done all year.”
The championship match is set for 7 p.m. Saturday in Canyon.
