WKU volleyball begins conference tournament with matchup against FAU

The second season has begun for the Conference USA co-champions of the regular season for the fourth straight year – which, by the way, congratulations to Travis Hudson and the young volleyball team for such a feat – but the C-USA tournament begins tonight for WKU, and they’ll want to avoid a similar fate that was handed to them a year ago.

Their first roadblock on the way to C-USA immortality is the FAU Owls, who the WKU volleyball team only gave up one set to in a pair of regular season meetings this year. As a matter of fact, the Lady Toppers have never lost to FAU – a perfect 17-0 coming into tonight.

In the media notes, coach Hudson had some words of weary, and highlighted that FAU isn’t the typical #7 seed, and cautions his young team of looking ahead.

"They are the best defensive team in the conference, so it’s going to be a grind. We have been in a lot of those, though, and we have persevered twice against them, but it’s a really tough matchup and not the type you are looking for necessarily with a young team– Travis Hudson on facing FAU"

The Owls are the best team in the nation when it comes to holding opponents to a low hitting percentage, as teams only hit .162 against them. However, the second team on that list is WKU, as they held opponents to a .166 percentage. If you love volleyball defense, tonight’s matchup is for you.

The Lady Tops bring with them four All-Conference players, as Heather Boyan, Alyssa Cavanaugh and Jessica Lucas were named to the All-Conference USA first team and Preseason Player of the Year Noelle Langenkamp was named to the All-C-USA second team. Cavanaugh was also named C-USA Freshman of the year, marking the third time in WKU volleyball history a player has been named the best freshmen in the conference.

The Lady Tops are rolling in with momentum, but had an all-too early exit in last year’s Sun Belt tournament, losing to the 8th-seeded Troy in the first round. Consequently, that was the first time the Trojans had ever defeated the Lady Tops.

Let’s hope the same feat isn’t intact tonight and we have another busy day tomorrow! First serve is at seven tonight, and it’ll be the final match of the evening.