Central Arkansas to face UTSA in Southland Tournament Championship
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HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The No. 1 seed Central Arkansas defeated the No. 4 seed UT Arlington in straight sets (25-19, 25-18, 25-18) to advance to the championship match Sunday, in the Southland volleyball tournament in Huntsville, Texas.
The Sugar Bears advance to their first Southland tournament title match on the strength of two consecutive sweeps against the No. 8 seed Nicholls and UT Arlington. Central Arkansas, who joined the Southland in 2006, is playing in its first year of postseason eligibility after a four-year transition from Division II. UCA has won the last two regular-season conference championships and are 31-1 against league teams during the last two seasons.
UCA senior outside hitter Chloe Smith, the Southland player of the year, led the Sugar Bears with a double-double performance with a match-high 17 kills and 10 digs. Junior outside hitter Jessica Hays, a first-team selection had 14 kills.
UT Arlington exits the tournament with a 1-1 record and have played in a record 27 conference tournaments. Through two matches junior middle blocker Emily Shearin led the Mavs with a .472 hitting percentage. First-team all-conference selection junior outside hitter Amanda Aguilera, led UTA with 23 kills and second-team member, junior Alicia Shaffer led the Mavs with 33 digs.
The top-seeded Sugar Bears will face the No. 2 seed UTSA in the title match with an automatic NCAA tournament qualification on the line. UTSA defeated Central Arkansas in the regular-season on Oct. 30 (3-1) and are the only Southland team to defeat UCA in the last two years.
The Southland Conference tournament championship match will be televised by the Southland Conference Television Network Sunday at 3 p.m., CST. and will be streamed live on SLC NOW, the conference's audio and video streaming platform on Southland.org. Doug Anderson will handle play-by-play duties. He will be joined on the broadcast by color analyst Jenny McGhee. All SLC NOW programming is free to anyone who registers on the site.
Fox College Sports Central will air a replay of the volleyball tournament championship match Monday at 11 a.m., CST, and again on Tuesday at 9 p.m., CST.
Quotes:
Central Arkansas Coach Steven McRoberts
"I thought we played really well. Our effort level was really high. We were able to keep our momentum going strong to get the win. We are glad to be playing Sunday for the conference tournament title. Should be a very good match."
On playing UTSA:
"We are motivated to play them again. They won the match in the regular-season giving us our only conference loss. Hopefully we can keep our intensity up tomorrow and play a good match."
Central Arkansas Senior Chloe Smith
"We put in one of our best efforts all year. We need to carry that over to the Southland title match. UTSA is a tough team."
Central Arkansas Junior Jessica Hays
"We showed a lot of heart today. We had a lot of fun and I hope we can continue to play at such a high level tomorrow."
UT Arlington Coach Diane Seymour
"Obviously we were sad to see that our winning streak would come to an end today, but I was proud of our kids' effort to battle. We came up against a Central Arkansas team that seemed to have everything going its way today. We kept fighting but we could never get the volleyball gods to turn our way tonight."
On hitting .094:
"That's a tough go of it. I just think that Central Arkansas played very good defense. They blocked well and it was just a combination of a couple of things that made it difficult for us to put balls away. Hats off to them and how they play. Their defense was just unbelievable."
On team's eight-match win streak to make Southland Tournament as No. 4 seed:
"It's just amazing to me about who these kids became over the course of the last four or five weeks as we went on that run - and really who they became over the last two weeks and how well they played against Corpus and San Antonio. I can't be more proud of them. I think we sent our seniors out on a good note - maybe one match short, but we did send them out on a good note. That's a good sign for the years to come."
UT Arlington Senior Raegan Daniel
"I'm sad that it's over. It hasn't really hit me yet. I still feel like I'm going to see them on Monday. I've been on a lot of successful and unsuccessful teams and I'm very proud of these girls for the way we were able to play this year."