Kentucky Wesleyan College Athletics

For the second straight year, at least one institution will be going to the NCAA Championship Midwest Regional as the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Volleyball Championship gets underway this week.

 

The postseason tournament will feature six teams from two divisions, Cedarville, Davis & Elkins, Trevecca Nazarene, Malone, Ursuline and Kentucky Wesleyan.

 

Quarterfinal action starts on Thursday with two matches followed by the semifinals on Friday and the championship match on Saturday afternoon.

 

The conference will get an automatic qualifier to the national tournament again while the final set of regional rankings could become a factor depending on how the conference tournament plays out.

 

This is the second straight year the G-MAC Volleyball Championship will be conducted in Mason, Ohio, at Mason Arena.

 

Earning first-round byes in the bracket was Blue division champ, regular-season conference champ and overall No. 1 seed Cedarville along with Black division champ Davis & Elkins.

 

The first championship banquet to recognize the all-conference teams and individual award winners will also be held on Wednesday evening. Video and live stats will be provided for all five matches during the week.

 

Defending tourney champ Trevecca Nazarene will see the court first as the No. 2 seed from the Blue division against No. 3 Ursuline in the Black division. The Trojans ran through the league with an 8-2 record and will face the Arrows on Thursday at 5 p.m. EST.

 

The winner would advance to face Davis & Elkins in Friday's semifinal also set for 5 p.m.

 

No. 2 Malone (Black division) clinched its spot in the postseason with two wins in West Virginia over the last weekend of the regular season and drew No. 3 Kentucky Wesleyan (Blue division) for the 7:30 p.m. Thursday quarterfinal.

 

Either Pioneers or Panthers will meet Cedarville in the last semifinal on Friday at 7:30 p.m.

 

The championship match will get underway at 2:30 p.m. EST on Saturday.

 

The Trojans interrupted a three-year reign by Cedarville as tournament champs and both teams split during the regular season this year with respective straight-set sweeps. Although TNU and CED could be on a collision course to the final, the other G-MAC teams are also eyeing their way to the top.  

 

The Trojans finished 2015 as the G-MAC's first national tournament-qualifying volleyball program and earned the No. 8 seed in the Midwest Regional against Ferris State.