Tops of the Sun Belt Moment #29 – Volleyball Regular Season 3-peat
Day number two on the countdown brings us to Fun Belt moment #29; and this moment ushers us to Travis Hudson‘s volleyball program.
Coach Hudson has been on the Hill for 19 full seasons now, and he continues to show his effectiveness as he provides numerous successful squads one after the other. Here recently, he has led the Lady Toppers to the end of the Sun Belt Era for the Volleyball program with three straight regular season titles.
The superb run began in the 2011 season and continued last year; the final year for the Lady Tops to play in the SBC. During that span, the WKU squad’s only dropped two conference losses.
The 2011 squad battled and went 15-1 throughout conference play; with their only loss coming to the loathsome MTSU. Despite the lone fault in the regular season, the squad would ease their way through the SBC Tourney. The championship matchup consisted of the Tops and Blue Raiders, and WKU would prove to be victorious and then headed to the NCAA Tournament. (But, we will talk more about this game later in our countdown.) The tourney birth would be short lived as they found themselves knocked out in round one after a 3-1 loss to Marquette.
The 2012 endeavor would be a prosperous one as the Lady Tops were relentless on the Sun Belt, shutting down every squad they faced; finishing with a record of 15-0. In fact, only one team (Florida International) was able to keep a zero off of their side of the stat sheet by winning a lone set. The same case was given throughout the Sun Belt tournament as WKU cruised past every opponent in shut out fashion (again, we will touch on this later this month). The squad entered the NCAA Tourney and moved past the first round by defeating Loyola Marymount 3-1. However their post season play ended in round number two as the home court advantage Stanford closed the WKU season 3-1 as well.
Thus bringing us to the year 2013 and the final run in the SBC. A year that brought a lot of success that unfortunately enough was cut a little too short. The Lady Tops went 17-1 throughout the regular season, handing them their 3rd straight title. The lone loss came against the Ragin Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette, as the game was played down in Cajun town. Despite the success, the Tops entered the SBC tourney set to face Troy, a team the Tops handled in shut out fashion in both meetings. Ironically enough, the two squads met each other for both’s final SBC game, and the opposite score of that game (3-0 WKU win) would occur in the opening round of the tourney (3-0 Troy win), which was the Trojans’ first ever volleyball win over the Lady Toppers.
After the 2013 campaign, one senior who was apart of every season during the 3-peat earned National honors for her gameplay and hard work. Senior Ashley Potts was named as a Second-team All American from the Senior CLASS Award.
The Lady Tops as a whole have had a lot of success in the SBC, and basing things on past perspective (such as the 3-peat), I assume the future WKU squads will have just as much success in C-USA.