Nov. 15, 2011

UVU's Great West Tournament Volleyball Notes

OREM, Utah -- After securing its first-ever Great West Conference Regular Season Championship last week, Utah Valley will look to follow it up with their first GWC Tournament crown when it heads to Grand Forks, N.D., for the conference championships this weekend.

As regular season champs, UVU (22-8, 9-1 GWC) clinched the No. 1 seed at the tournament, a position that also gives the Wolverines a bye into the semifinals. UVU opens play Friday afternoon at 4 p.m., and will face the winner of Thursday's first quarterfinal--a matchup between fourth-seeded NJIT (10-17, 3-7 GWC) and fifth-seeded Chicago State (3-27, 2-8 GWC). The Wolverines finished the season a combined 4-0 against the two schools, including a 12-2 margin in sets won.

UVU enters the tournament having won its last three matches and nine of its last 10 sets. After suffering a tough road defeat against Boise State on Nov. 1, the Wolverines responded with a 3-0 sweep of Utah State on Nov. 3, another sweep of Southern Utah five days later, and then an exciting 3-1 victory over North Dakota on Nov. 11 that sealed the GWC Regular Season title.

North Dakota (24-5, 8-2 GWC), the tournament's host, finished second behind UVU in the conference standings and will await the winner of the other quarterfinal match between No. 3 seed Houston Baptist (21-8, 7-3 GWC) and No. 6 seed Texas-Pan American (8-23, 1-9 GWC). The Huskies of HBU are the only GWC team to have claimed victory over UVU this season, when they defeated the Wolverines on Oct. 15 in Houston.

Should UVU advance past Friday's semifinal, it will compete for its first GWC Tournament title on Saturday at 4 p.m. For a more comprehensive look at this year's GWC Volleyball Championships, including the tournament bracket, team rosters and statistics, and live stats and video, visit the Tournament Central by clicking HERE.