Wednesday, November 17, 2010

FORT MYERS, Fla. – The final Atlantic Sun Conference Championship of the fall season gets underway on Thursday with the A-Sun Volleyball Championship. Two games open the festivities in the first round as No. 4 Belmont and No. 5 Mercer jump start the three-day tournament at 5 p.m. before No. 3 ETSU and No. 6 UNF cap the opening night of games with a 7 p.m. start.

The Bruins (13-14) and Bears (14-17) met once in the regular season as Belmont came out victorious on their home court with a sweep of Mercer. In that match, Belmont’s all-conference members Maggie Johnson and Kayla Albritton teamed up for a total 29 kills and only nine errors, while Mercer’s Charlotte Harris, the A-Sun Libero of the Year, picked up 12 digs in the loss.

Belmont, who own two of the past four A-Sun Tournament titles, enters the contest with victories in five of their past six matches, while Mercer returns to the tournament after missing out last season and are 8-3 since falling on the road to the Bruins on Oct. 2nd.

The third-seeded Buccaneers (24-8) face the sixth-seeded Ospreys (7-21) after UNF claimed their final two conference matches to clinch the program’s first-ever appearance in the A-Sun Championship. ETSU took the regular season match, 3-0, on the Ospreys’ home court behind the performances of all-conference member Alysa Long and Freshman of the Year Megan Devine, who both tallied 10 kills in the match.

The top-seeded Lipscomb Lady Bisons, who went undefeated in conference play, await the winner of the Belmont/Mercer game, while the Kennesaw State Owls square off with the survivor of the ETSU/UNF match.

For the second-straight season, the Lady Bisons swept through the conference competition en route to the top seed as they extended their regular-season conference win streak to 35 games, while the Owls’ only blemish on their 9-1 record came at the hands of Lipscomb as they clinched the two seed for the first time in school history.

The entire A-Sun Volleyball Championship can be viewed for free on ASun.TV starting with Thursday’s 5 p.m. match and continuing through Saturday’s championship final at 3 p.m.