NCAA Central Region Tournament
Nov. 29-Dec. 1
Gangelhoff Center
Concordia University, St. Paul
St. Paul, Minn.

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Complete Game Notes (pdf)
NCAA Central Region Website | Live Video Streaming | Live Stats
Tournament Bracket (Interactive | Printable)

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Tickets: $10 Adults | $6 Seniors | $6 Students | Free 5 and under

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Quarterfinal; November 29
Match 1: No. 3 Nebraska-Kearney vs No. 6 Washburn • 12:00 p.m.
Match 2: No. 2 Southwest Minnesota State vs No. 7 Truman • 2:30 p.m.
Match 3: No. 4 Central Missouri vs No. 5 Minnesota Duluth • 5:00 p.m.
Match 4: No. 1 Concordia-St. Paul vs No. 8 Wayne State • 7:30 p.m.

Semifinal; November 30
Match 5: Match 1 Winner vs Match 2 Winner • 5:00 p.m.
Match 6: Match 3 Winner vs Match 4 Winner • 7:30 p.m.

Championship; December 1
Match 7: Match 5 Winner vs Match 6 Winner


Micro-Blogging The Blues
(Around 140-character or less tweets highlighting the season)
• The Lady Blues will play in their 10th NCAA tournament and ninth straight. They 1st went in 2002 and have gone every year since 2004.
• WU is 11-9 overall in the tournament, 6-3 in first round matches and 10-8 overall in region tournaments. WU has never played UNK in the tourney.
• WU has been to 2 straight regional championships but has only advanced out of the region once, in 2007, finishing 3rd in the nation that year.
• Washburn hosted the 8-team national tourney that year & Concordia-St. Paul won its 1st of what has become 5 straight national titles.
• Chris Herron coached his 400th WU match in the MIAA semifinal against UCM. He has faced UCM 28 times, more than any other team he's faced.
• Washburn is fourth in the latest AVCA poll and it's the Lady Blues 51st straight time in the top 10 and 120th straight time in the top 25.
• The Lady Blues earned their sixth straight 30-win season and 11th in school history.
• Washburn finished second in the MIAA regular season standings, tied with Central Missouri with one loss each. UNK won the title.
• Chris Herron earned his 400th career win as a head coach Sept. 28 at FHSU. Last year he celebrated his 300th win at Washburn.
• Herron is in his 11th year at WU with a 340-58 record. He's got 10 NCAA appearances, 4 MIAA titles and 15 All-Americans.


Tournament Time
Lady Blues head north for ninth straight NCAA tournament appearance; open Thursday against Nebraska-Kearney
For the first time in school history, the fourth-ranked Lady Blues will head north of the Kansas and Missouri borders for an NCAA postseason match as they open the Central Region tournament Thursday at noon against second-ranked Nebraska-Kearney.

Top-ranked Concordia-St. Paul will host the regional at the Gangelhoff Center in St. Paul, Minn.

Washburn earned the No. 6 seed in the region and the Lopers are seeded third. No. 2 Southwest Minnesota State and No. 7 Truman will play Thursday at 2:30 and the two winners will play Friday at 5 p.m. The championship match is Saturday at 7 p.m.

The other two first round matches Thursday feature No. 4 Central Missouri against No. 5 Minnesota Duluth at 5 p.m. and No. 1 Concordia against No. 8 Wayne State (Neb.) at 7:30 p.m. Those two winners will play Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Washburn is 31-3 and finished tied for second in the MIAA at 15-2. The Lady Blues advanced to the second round of the MIAA postseason tournament but fell, 3-2 to Central Missouri. Nebraska-Kearney won the MIAA regular season and postseason championships in its first year in the league. The Lopers are 33-2 overall and went 16-1 in the MIAA.

The Central Region winner will advance to the NCAA national tournament, December 6-8 in Pensacola, Fla. West Florida will host those three rounds in the UWF Fieldhouse.

Washburn's NCAA Tournament History
Lady Blues look to advance out of region for second time in history
• The Lady Blues are making their 10th NCAA tournament appearance and ninth straight since 2004. They made their first trip in 2002.
• Washburn has never played an NCAA tournament match north of Kansas or Missouri. Regional realignment this year put the MIAA in the same region as the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.
• Washburn has never played Nebraska-Kearney or any of the NSIC teams before in the NCAA tournament. The Lady Blues are 1-5 against Central Missouri and 1-1 against Truman.
• The Lady Blues are 11-9 all-time in the NCAA tournament, 10-8 in regionals and 6-3 in opening round matches. Washburn has won its last three opening round matches and has been to the region final two straight years.
• This is the first time Washburn has been ranked lower than a No. 3 seed in the tournament. Washburn had been the No. 2 seed in three straight tournaments.

120 Straight In The Polls
Lady Blues get 51st straight top-10 ranking
The top four teams from last week all shuffled spots in the latest AVCA national poll released November 12. The Lady Blues fell from third to fourth after losing to Nebraska-Kearney. The Lopers jumped from fourth to second and No. 1 Southwest Minnesota State fell to third. Concordia-St. Paul took the top spot after being second last week.
Central Missouri fell two spots to eighth and Truman remained 13th in the country.

The Lady Blues earned their 120th straight ranking and their 51st straight in the top 10. They have been in every weekly poll since week one of the 2004 season and they have been in the top 10 going back to week one of 2009.

Fey Named First Team All-Region
Fey and Kopp named to AVCA all-Central Region teams
Senior middle hitter Jessica Fey was named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association all-Central Region first team November 22. Senior rightside hitter Jessica Kopp earned honorable mention.

Fey, an honorable mention AVCA All-American last year, was named the MIAA player of the year this year. This is her third straight selection to the AVCA all-region first team. She's hitting .361 and averaging 3.31 kills a set to lead the team. She's second in the league in hitting and fourth in kills. Earlier this year she became the ninth Lady Blues to record 1,000 kills and 300 blocks in a career.

Kopp is hitting .254 and is 11th in the MIAA with 2.78 kills a set. She was a second team all-MIAA selection this year and this is her first all-region honor.

Six Lady Blues Named All-Conference
Fey named MIAA player of the year; joins five others on all-MIAA team
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Middle hitter Jessica Fey became the second Lady Blues to ever be named MIAA player of the year as the all-conference awards were announced November 16. She was also named first team all-MIAA and joined five others who earned all-conference.

Rightside hitter Jessica Kopp and outside hitter Hillary Hughes were named to the second team and setter Abby Wittman earned third team honor. Outside hitter Kelsey Lewis and middle hitter Marissa Cox were named honorable mention.

School Record Winning Streak Comes To End
Lady Blues pushed it to 51 before 3-2 loss to UNK
• The Lady Blues had a school record 51-match home winning streak come to an end as they fell 3-2 to Nebraska-Kearney on November 10. Since then, they defeated Fort Hays State at home in the first round of the MIAA tournament.
• Washburn lost once in 2009 at home then went all of 2010 and 2011 without a loss. The Lady Blues won their first 12 home matches in 2012.
• Their previous loss in front of the home crowd before the UNK defeat was against Central Missouri on September 25, 2009.
• Chris Herron is 144-14 (.911) coaching in Lee Arena.
• Washburn has won 67 of its last 69 home matches and 83 of its last 86.

About Coach Chris Herron
Head coach Chris Herron building solid program in 11th season
• Head Coach Chris Herron is 342-58 (.855) in his 11th season at Washburn and 417-87 (.827) in 14 years overall as a head coach.
• Herron's match against Central Missouri November 16 was his 400th on the Washburn bench. He reached his 500th career game coached during the William Jewell match on November 6.
• He's won more games (342) in the last 11 years than any other program that has been in the MIAA during that time. Truman is second with 329.
• He's turned Washburn volleyball completely around. The program went 169-265 (.389) in its first 12 years as an MIAA school from 1990-2001 and had never been to the NCAA tournament.
• Herron has earned Washburn its first 10 NCAA tournament appearances and four conference titles.
• In his first 11 years he's had at least one All-American each year but his first. He has seen his players earn 15 All-America awards include three first-teamers.
• Herron won a conference title in 2002, his first year with the Lady Blues and they hosted the NCAA region tournament in their first trip to the event.
• He was named MIAA coach of the year in 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2011 and AVCA region coach of the year in 2007.
• His 2007 squad advanced out of the NCAA region tournament for the first time in school history and hosted the NCAA national tournament. Washburn made it to the semifinal and finished ranked third in the nation.
• The 1980 College of the Ozarks graduate went 75-29 in three years at Benedictine before coming to Washburn.

Washburn Against The Tournament Field
Washburn has limited experience against non-MIAA schools
Washburn is 6-25 against Nebraska-Kearney after going 0-2 this year. The two played many times during Washburn's early years with the series coming to an end in 1993 and then picked up against once in 2007. This is UNK's first year in the MIAA and same region as Washburn.

Washburn is 14-35 against Truman all-time and winners of the last four in the series. The Lady Blues are 13-48 against Central Missouri and have met in the previous two region finals.

Against the NSIC schools in the regional, Washburn is 1-2 against Concordia-St. Paul and 9-16 against Wayne State. The Lady Blues have never played Southwest Minnesota State or Minnesota Duluth.

Net Notes
Final points...
• Marissa Cox hit set a career-high with 27 kills November 13 against Fort Hays State in the MIAA first round. Cox had Washburn's last six points of the first set off of kills to finish that frame with 10. She ended the match with just two errors and hit .641 to give her the highest attack percentage in school history for anyone with 30 attempts or more. Her 27 kills is the third-highest total in a four-set match at Washburn.
• Jessica Fey was named the Sports Imports/AVCA Division II national player of the week October 16 after averaging 5.00 points per set and hitting .494 in three Washburn wins the previous week. She was also named the MIAA hitter of the week. She had the second most points (33.5) and third most kills (29) in school history in the Lady Blues 3-2 win at No. 7 Central Missouri on October 13. Fey is Washburn's fourth national player of the year and the first since Monica Miesner in 2008.
• Fey was named the Lady Blues Classic (Oct. 5-6) MVP after she hit .520 during the four matches. She hit .786 against Southeastern Oklahoma with 11 kills and no errors in 14 attempts and she hit .632 against Southwestern Oklahoma. She reached double figures in kills in three of the contests.
• Fey became the ninth player at Washburn to record 1,000 kills and 300 blocks this year. She's 13th in school history with 1,200 kills and she's 13th with 342 blocks. Her .323 attack percentage is the third highest in school history.
• Hillary Hughes became the eight Washburn player to get 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs. She's 14th with 1,165 kills and 14th with 1,217 digs.
• Hughes moved to fourth in Washburn history with her 37th career double-double. She's sixth with 56 career double-figure kill matches and tied for fifth with 58 double-figure dig matches.
• Hughes and Fey became the eighth and ninth players Chris Herron has coached to 1,000 kills. Washburn also put two players in the 1,000 kills club last year.
• Abby Wittman became the eighth Lady Blue to get 2,000 assists in a career and she's now seventh in Washburn history with 2,400. She needs 13 to move to sixth and 74 to crack the top five.

Coming Up Next...
Lady Blues look to go south for NCAA national tournament
The winner of the NCAA Central Region tournament will join the seven of the regional winners December 6-8 in the NCAA national tournament. West Florida will host the three rounds in Pensacola, Fla. The Central Region winner will play the South East Region winner at noon on December 6.