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NCAA South Central Region Tournament Game Notes
Washburn (34-3, 12-1 MIAA)

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Match 38 vs West Georgia (27-11, 6-6 Gulf South Conference) Date: Thursday, November 15, 2007 Time: 2:30 p.m. Place: Pershing Arena; Kirksville, Mo. Quarterfinal • Thursday, November 15 No. 3 West Florida vs No. 6 Central Missouri • 12 p.m. No. 2 Washburn vs No. 7 West Georgia • 2:30 p.m. No. 4 Emporia State vs No. 5 Pittsburg State • 5 p.m. No. 1 Truman vs No. 8 Albany State • 7:30 p.m. Semifinal • Friday, November 16 UWF/UCM winner vs WU/UWG winner • 4:30 p.m. ESU/PSU winner vs TSU/ASU winner • 7 p.m. Final • Saturday, November 17 Semifinal winners • 7 p.m.

Fourth straight NCAA tournament starts Thursday for Lady Blues against West Georgia
The seventh-ranked Lady Blues will be playing in their fourth straight NCAA tournament when they take on West Georgia at 2:30 p.m. Thursday in Kirksville, Mo., at Truman's Pershing Arena. Washburn (34-3) is the No. 2 seed in the tournament while the Wolves (27-11) are the seventh seed, entering the tournament as the automatic qualifier out of the Gulf South Conference.
   
The winner of the quarterfinal match will play against the Central Missouri/West Florida winner in a semifinal Friday at 4:30 p.m. and then that winner will advance to Saturday's 7 p.m. regional championship match.
   
The other side of the bracket features top-seeded Truman against Albany State and Pittsburg State against Emporia State.
   
Washburn is well familiar with the four other MIAA teams and has limited experience against the non-conference teams. Washburn and West Georgia have met twice with Washburn last winning in 2005.

Lady Blues look to advance far into NCAA tournament
Washburn has been to the NCAA South Central Region tournament five times now and in each of the last four years. The Lady Blues are 2-4 all-time in the tournament, advancing as far as the second round in 2005 and 2004. Last year West Florida, the No. 3 seed this year, defeated Washburn in the first round. The Lady Blues two wins came against Harding in 2005 and 2004. They are 0-2 against Central Missouri and 0-1 against Truman in the tournament. The Lady Blues are 1-2 when the region tournament is played in Kirksville, losing last year and splitting a win and loss in 2004.
    
Seniors Mandi Cox and Erica Cowhick will be playing in their fourth NCAA tournament. Cox is Washburn's career leader in NCAA matches with 46 kills, 57.5 points, a .373 attack percentage and 15 total blocks. Cowhick leads with 61 digs.

Washburn and West Georgia meet with limited history
The Lady Blues and the Wolves have met twice in history with each team winning a match. Washburn won a 3-1 decision in 2005 at a tournament at Henderson State and in 1998 UWG won, 3-1 against the Lady Blues at the Alabama-Huntsville Invitational. Tessa Jones led the Lady Blues with 14 kills in the 2005 match and hit .256 while Erica Cowhick had 12 digs. Mandi Cox had four blocks. Amber Barmlund, a junior now for UWG, had 10 kills in that match.
   
West Georgia has not played an MIAA team yet this year and the Lady Blues are 3-0 against Gulf South Conference schools this year.

Cowhick moves to 2nd in MIAA career digs, already leads WU
Senior libero Erica Cowhick has 2,334 digs in her four years at WU, now making her second all-time in the MIAA. Last week in the MIAA tournament she passed PSU's Dina Wathan, who had 2,326 from 2000-03. Cowhick holds every dig record at Washburn and she recently completed her 103rd double-figure dig match. Earlier in the year she became the first Lady Blue to reach 2,000 digs and just the fourth in MIAA history.

Already in the 1,000 kills club, Cox looks to leave WU as career attack percentage leader
Senior Mandi Cox started the year as the school's career leader in attack percentage with a .324 mark. She is hitting .329 this year and now .326 overall to keep herself on pace to stay atop the chart as her career nears an end. She has a lot of wiggle room to hold the record. The next closest in the record book is Kate Thomsen, who hit .288 from 1996-97.
   
Cox's finest year was her sophomore season when she set the school record with a .373 attack percentage. She will try this year for the ninth single-season attack percentage above .300 in Washburn history.
   
Cox joined an elite group of Lady Blues on October 6 when she reached 1,000 kills in her career to make her the 12th member of the 1,000 kill club at Washburn. Cox is currently 13th in career kills at Washburn with 1,098. With 351 total career blocks, she is eight away from moving into the top 10.

Attack percentage records on pace to be shattered
Washburn has three attackers hitting at over .300 this season and only 10 times in school history has a player ended the year hitting .300 or better. Mandi Cox leads the team with a .329 percentage, Stephanie Nitz is hitting .318 and Tessa Jones is attacking at .314. Cox's percentage is currently good enough for the fourth highest total in school history.
   
The Lady Blues are also on pace to break the school record for attack and for total kills. This year they have a .273 team percentage while in 2004 the previous record of .258 was set. With 2,209 total kills this year, they just recently broke the old school record of 2,154 kills set in 2005.

Lady Blues set school-record winning streak this year
The Lady Blues tied their previous school record for a winning streak with 18 straight match wins. They went on the shatter that record by reaching 27 wins before it was snapped earlier at Emporia State. Their previous best was 18 straight matches during 2005.
   
Washburn also set school records this year by winning 29 straight games and by sweeping eight straight opponents. Both of those record streaks were snapped by Rockhurst two weeks ago.

Lady Blues record school's sixth 30-win season
This year's team became just the sixth team in Washburn's history to win 30 or more matches. At 34-3 this year, they are also just the second WU team to do it since joining the MIAA in 1989. Washburn last reached 30 wins when it went 35-3 in 2005 and the school win record is 45 wins in 1985 when the Lady Blues played 63 matches.

Miesner joins 1,000 digs/1,000 kills club
Junior Monica Miesner became the 16th member of  Washburn's 1,000 career digs club earlier in the year and then she became the 13th member of the 1,000 kills club. Now with 1,159 kills and 1,297 digs, she is Washburn's seventh member of the 1,000 kills/1,000 digs club. Miesner is currently 11th at Washburn in career kills and 11th in digs. She is 65 kills from cracking the top 10 in that category and 19 digs from the top 10 in Washburn history.
   
Miesner is second on the team this year with 3.43 kills a game and 4.26 digs.

Jones joins Washburn's 1,000 kill club, nets 500 for the season
Senior All-American rightside hitter Tessa Jones became the eighth player to reach 500 kills in a season this year, now with 553, the third highest total in school history and five away from tying for second. Earlier in the year she became the 11th member of Washburn's 1,000 kill club. Jones is second all-time in kills per game with 3.89 and second with 4.60 points.

Herron moves to the top of the list in coaching victories
WU head coach Chris Herron became Washburn's all-time leading coach by wins when the Lady Blues defeated Panhandle State on October 5. He is currently 180-37 in his sixth year at Washburn. He moved past Linda Moley, Washburn's coach from 1982-86 who went 167-108 in five seasons.
   
Herron is already Washburn's leader in winning percentage, entering the year with an .811 mark in five full seasons. Counting his three years at Benedictine, Herron entered the year with a .778 career winning percentage, which was 10th most in NCAA Division II among active coaches.

Washburn earns 52nd straight ranking in AVCA poll
After falling in the MIAA tournament semifinal last week the Lady Blues dropped one spot to seventh in the AVCA national poll, released Monday. Washburn has been ranked in the top 10 for the last 10 weeks and they have been ranked 52 straight times now dating back to week one of the 2004 season. They have been in the top 10 in 27 of those weeks.

Lady Blues are 7-2 against ranked teams
The Lady Blues are 7-2 against ranked opponents this year with three wins against top-10 teams. In Chris Herron's sixth year the Lady Blues are 24-26 against ranked teams and 6-13 against the top-10. In NCAA tournament matches they are 0-2 overall while at home they are 14-10.

Net Notes
• This year the Lady Blues have started every match but four with a win and are 32-1 when doing so. Their one loss when opening with a win came against Nebraska-Kearney. When opening with two straight wins, Washburn is 27-0 with 22 sweeps. They went 24-3 last year when winning the first game of a match and they are 161-9 in Chris Herron's six years as coach.
• Washburn finished second in NCAA II last year in total attendance with 9,195 total fans. The 575 fans per game was sixth most in the nation. The total figure led the MIAA and the average was the second best. This year the Lady Blues are averaging 508 fans a game.
• Erica Cowhick now has 692 digs, giving her the top three single-season dig totals in school history. The total this year is also a record for a Lady Blues senior, giving her the top single-season totals for a sophomore, junior and senior in her last three years.
• Tessa Jones is 14 kills away from moving into fifth in school history, now with 1,407 in her third and final year.
• Mandi Cox is eight blocks away from moving into the top 10 in school history, now with 351 in her fourth year.

Wrapping up the MIAA Postseason Tournament
The Lady Blues advanced to the MIAA Postseason Tournament semifinal with a 30-19, 30-20, 30-22 win over Missouri Western last Tuesday. Against the Griffons, the Lady Blues scored five straight points to turn an 18-12 lead into a a 22-13 lead pulling away to a 30-19 game one win. In the first game, Washburn hit .452 (23 kills, 4 errors, 42 attempts) compared to the Griffons .275.
   
In the second game, Washburn jumped out to a 3-0 lead before the Griffons rallied to knot the score at 3-3. The Lady Blues would an early four point led to 19-10 before taking the second game 30-20. Washburn wrapped up the match with a 30-22 win in the third game as they led from start to finish. The Lady Blues led by as many as 11 at 22-11 before taking the win.
   
Tessa Jones led the Lady Blues with 16 kills in 30 attempts with one error (.500 hitting percentage). Also in double figure kills were Monica Miesner with 14 and Stephanie Nitz with 13 kills. Kate Hampson dished out 50 assists and Erica Cowhick had 15 digs. Miesner added 10 digs to her 14 kills to record her 48th double-double of her career and her 21st of the season.
   
In the MIAA final against Pittsburg State Jones led the Lady Blues with 27 kills and Washburn forced game five after falling behind 2-0, but the Gorillas hung on for a 30-23, 30-20, 26-30, 25-30, 15-13 win Friday night.
   
The Lady Blues were overpowered in games one and two as the Gorillas opened up with a .545 attack percentage in game one and then a .425 effort in the second game. They committed just seven attack errors in those games with just two in game one.
   
Washburn, 5-0 in five-game matches coming into the night, forced the deciding game by winning games three and four.
   
The Lady Blues were down 11-13 before Jones got a kill that started a 7-0 run. She had one more kill in the run, but the rest of the points were scored on PSU errors to give the Lady Blues an 18-13 lead. The Gorillas fought back and got within one at 25-24, but Jones' kill later put WU up by three and then Simpson-Mills finished off the game with a kill.
   
The Lady Blues hit just .159 in that game, but took advantage of .017 hitting by the Gorillas.
   
Game four was played back and forth as there were nine ties and three lead changes. PSU tied the score at 19-19 on a WU attack error, but Washburn built a five-point lead at 25-20 and then held off PSU for a five-point win.
   
Cowhick moved into second all-time in the MIAA with 14 digs to total 2,334 in her four years. She is already the school's career leader.
   
Jones hit .351 with 27 kills in 57 attempts with seven errors. Simpson-Mills and Cox reached double figures with 10 kills each and Cox hit .348 for the night.
   
Hampson had 62 assists and Miesner led the back row with 17 digs while Jones added 12 for a double-double. Cox and Nitz led the team with seven blocks each.

South Central Region winner advances to the Elite 8
The winner of the region tournament will advance to the NCAA Elite 8 from November 29 to December 1, with the host site to be determined from the eight schools that advance. Washburn's region is set to play November 29 against the winner of the South Region, which is hosted by defending national champion Tampa.