SEATTLE – The University of Missouri-St. Louis volleyball will take on No. 17 Barry in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament this Thursday (Dec. 1) at 4:30 p.m. (CST) at the Royal Brougham Pavilion in Seattle. The Tritons are making their first appearance at the NCAA Championships after winning its first Midwest Regional title in program history against Ferris State on Nov. 19 in Quincy, Ill.
UMSL, seeded seventh, has won three straight matches, 16 of its last 18 and is 24-6 on the season. The Tritons swept fourth seeded Rockhurst in the first round of the regional, then beat top seeded and host Quincy in four sets and then rallied from a 0-2 defeat to reverse sweep the Bulldogs for the regional championship.
UMSL is led by GLVC and AVCA Midwest Region Player of the Year
Charlotte Richards with 4.13 kills per set while
Lexie Rang is averaging 3.51 kills per set,
Hailey Flowers is at 2.43 kills per set and
Hannah Copeland and
Mya Elliott have contributed 2.00 and 1.92 kills per set respectively.
Caitlin Bishop has led an offense that is hitting .270 for the season and averaging 14.26 kills per set. She leads the GLVC in assists with 11.33 per set.
Kylie Adams is averaging 4.71 digs per set and has a reception percentage of 95.9 percent while Richards is averaging 3.62 digs per set. Elliott and Copeland are averaging 0.83 and 0.70 blocks per set respectively.
About Barry – The Buccaneers, seeded second, are 28-5 on the season and have also won three straight. Barry is back in the NCAA Quarterfinals, after winning the national championship in 1995, 2001 and 2004. To get to the quarterfinals, the Bucs knocked off sixth seeded Nova Southeastern in five sets in the first round, beat second seeded Lynn in the South Region semifinals and then defeated defending national champion Tampa in straight sets for the regional championship. This is Barry's sixth South Region title, but first since the 2004 national championship run.
Diana Akopova, the Sunshine State Conference and AVCA South Region player of the year, had a monster performance against Tampa with a match-high 27 kills and 30 points. She is also the DII women's volleyball leader in kills per set at 5.65 and points per set at 6.33.
The winner of Thursday's quarterfinal will take on the winner of the match between third seeded West Texas A&M and sixth seeded Wingate on Friday in the semifinal round at 6 p.m. (CST) at Royal Brougham Pavilion in Seattle.
