Volleyball Heads to Southern Conference Tournament
11/12/2012 8:31:55 PM | Volleyball
Bracket (PDF) // SoCon Tournament Central
VIDEO: SoCon preview interview with Coach Chad Callihan
STATESBORO, Ga. – Riding a 12-match win streak, the Georgia Southern volleyball team will open play in the Southern Conference Tournament against UNCG Saturday, Nov. 17, at 12:30 p.m. in Belk Arena on the campus of Davidson College.
The winner of the tournament receives the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be streamed live on SoConTV, and the championship match will be broadcast on ESPN3.
Georgia Southern (24-6, 15-1), which has won 17 of its last 18 matches, earned the No.1 seed in the South Division, and UNCG (13-15, 7-9) is the fourth seed from the North Division. The winner will face the winner of No. 2N Elon and No. 3S Furman in the semifinals Sunday.
The Eagles and Spartans played just once this season, a 3-0 GSU win at home Oct. 13. The Eagles are 13-14 in the all-time series against UNCG, and the Spartans are 4-2 against GSU in the last six.
Georgia Southern owns a 17-12 all-time record in the SoCon Tournament, and its last tournament championship came in 2010. The Eagles and Spartans have met just once in SoCon Tourney play, a 3-0 UNCG win in 2008.
Meredith Paskert leads the Eagles in kills with 400 and averages 3.48 per set. The senior is hitting .342 and averaging 4.02 kills a set during the Eagles' current win streak. She has posted double-figure kills in all 12 matches with a high of 22 at Samford Oct. 20.
Moriah Bellissimo is averaging 2.87 kills and 3.01 digs a set for the season, and Alexandra Beecher averages 4.87 digs per set. Beecher's 560 digs this season are the second most in a season at GSU, 37 behind Megan Lippi, who posted 597 in 2003. Beecher is averaging 5.20 digs per set during the Eagles' current winning streak and has posted 20 or more digs in 12 matches this season, including four of the last six.
Kate Van Dyke ranks 24th in the country in assists with 11.29 per set and also averages 2.82 digs a game. She has posted 40 or more assists 19 times this season and collected 50 or more three times. Already GSU's leader in career assists, Van Dyke's 1,253 helpers this season are the fifth-most in GSU history, and her average per set is a school record, breaking her own mark of 10.77, set in 2010.
Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics and twitter.com/GSAthletics, and its new "Eagles GATA" mobile app for Android and iOS.
