Sun Belt volleyball title coming down to last match for WKU, MTSU
November 11, 2011
Head Coach Travis Hudson has talked
for weeks about making the last volleyball match of the season
matter.
Hudson definitely got his
wish.
The Lady Toppers (27-3, 14-1 Sun
Belt Conference) will take on Middle Tennessee State (18-9, 14-1)
at 7 p.m. Friday in Murfreesboro in the last regular season Sun
Belt match either team will play, and a lot is on the
line.
Both teams are 14-1 in the
conference and are tied with each other at the top of the Sun Belt
East Division. The winner of Friday’s match will be crowned
regular-season division and conference champion and will receive
the No. 1 seed in next week’s Sun Belt tournament.
Despite the stakes, senior middle
hitter Lindsay Williams said the Lady Toppers are looking at it as
just another match against their biggest rival.
“It’s always that rivalry that we’re
striving to get a win in,” she said. “It would definitely be
something that I would take from it as a bonus for the season we’ve
been having.”
WKU dropped a match against MTSU
earlier this season — the only home loss and only Sun Belt loss for
the Lady Toppers this season.
In fact, MTSU has had the Lady
Toppers’ number on the court for the past few years. WKU hasn’t
gotten a win over the Lady Raiders since 2008, when Williams was a
freshman.
Junior defensive specialist Sarah
Rogers has yet to beat MTSU in her time in Bowling Green. She said
tonight’s match is a perfect opportunity to notch her first
win.
“I’ve never beaten Middle Tennessee.
We haven’t beaten them in a couple of years,” she said. “Just the
fact that they came on our home court and beat us and we have a
chance to get back at them for the regular season championship has
us going.”
Hudson said despite WKU’s lack of
success against MTSU in recent years, he’ll be looking past the
rivalry between the two teams in tonight’s match.
“I’ve beaten Middle Tennessee a lot
of times in my career,” he said. “To me, it’s a chance to win a
championship, and I don’t care who’s on the other side.”
MTSU comes into Friday riding a
16-match winning streak and is also competing to be regular-season
champ and have the No. 1 seed in the Sun Belt
tournament.
Hudson said the stakes should bring
a big home crowd to the match in Murfreesboro.
“It’ll be loud, it’ll be rowdy, but
we always play really well down there,” he said. “I think we play
them better down there than we do here in Diddle Arena, for
whatever reason, so I don’t think our kids will be bothered or
uptight at all.”
Rogers said the rivalry always
brings out a wild crowd and the Lady Toppers are ready to deal with
it.
“We just have to stay focused the
whole time,” she said. “Their fans are going to be rowdy and trying
to make a difference in the game and we’re prepared for
that.”
Hudson said the Lady Toppers will
have to manage the higher stakes because every game from now on
will have more on the line.
“I’d rather be on our sideline than
theirs on Friday night,” he said. “The boring regular season
matches are behind us at this point and it’s a lot of fun for these
kids from here on out.”