Complete Game Notes (pdf)
Tournament Website
Ichablogging Weekly Notes
(Around 140-character or less tweets highlighting the season)
WU is making its 10th straight trip to the NCAA tournament and 11th overall, all under 12-year coach
Chris Herron. The Ichabods are 11-10 in the event.
The Ichabods have never met SMSU in the tournament or regular season.
If the Bods advance, they have never met UMD but are 1-0 in the tournament against Ark. Tech and 5-2 all-time. They met this year in a 3-0 Washburn win.
Washburn has never been the No. 4 seed in the tournament and has never faced the No. 5 seed.
Washburn wrapped up its third MIAA regular season title in the last four years with a 15-1 league record. The Bods and UCM shared those three titles.
Washburn has won five MIAA titles (2002, 2005, 2010, 2011 and 2012).
Cox and Wittman were named all-MIAA 1st team,
Kelsey Lewis was 2nd team,
Leanna Willer 3rd team and
Corrinne Stringer and
Sarah Vicory HM.
Cox earned Daktronics all-Central Region first team honor and has moved on to the All-America ballot.
All-region AVCA will be released Wednesday.
Cox hit .359 the last week of the regular season with 4.78 kills a set to earn MIAA hitter of the week for the second straight week and 5th time this year.
Cox is second in the MIAA with 3.73 kills per set and a .340 attack percentage.
Abby Wittman is 2nd with 11.09 assists and
Kelsey Lewis is 5th with 4.55 digs.
Chris Herron earned his seventh straight 30-win season and the eighth in his 12th year.
Abby Wittman is 3rd in career assists with 3,771 & needs 111 to move to second. Her single-season total of 1,397 is 7th and her 11.09 per set is 10th.
Besides Wittman, only one Washburn setter has at least 2,000 career assists and 1,000 digs (Kate Hampson from 2006-09).
Ichabods head to snowy Minnesota for NCAA Central Region Tournament
The eighth-ranked Ichabods will join a packed field of eight teams this weekend in the NCAA Central Region tournament and play seventh-ranked Southwest Minnesota State Thursday at 5 p.m. in the quarterfinal. Top-seeded Minnesota Duluth, ranked second in the nation, will host the event in Romano Gymnasium.
Live video and stats for all matches will be available from a link through www.wusports.com/live. Tickets for each day are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors (65+) and $5 for children (3-12). All-tournament passes are also available.
Washburn is 31-5 and is the No. 4 seed in the region while SMSU is seeded fifth and is 23-7 entering the weekend. The winner will play at 7:30 p.m. Friday against the winner of the No. 1-seed UMD/No. 8 Arkansas Tech match. The other quarterfinal matches Thursday take place in the afternoon and feature third-seeded Concordia St. Paul against No. 6 Northern State and No. 2 Central Missouri against No. 7 Nebraska-Kearney. Those winners will play a semifinal Friday and the championship match will be Saturday at 7 p.m.
The Ichabods are making their 10th straight trip to the NCAA tournament and 11th overall, all under head coach
Chris Herron. They are 11-10 overall in the event and have advanced out of the regional once in 2007 when they finished as national semifinalists.
Washburn shared the MIAA regular season title with UCM with a 15-1 record. The Ichabods went 1-1 in the MIAA postseason tournament as the No. 2 seed with a win over Northwest Missouri in the opening round and a loss to Nebraska-Kearney in the semifinal. Southwest Minnesota State finished third in the NSIC standings at 17-3 but fell in the postseason tournament's first round to Wayne State (Neb.). Washburn has never met the Mustangs in the postseason or regular season.
Ichabods making 10th straight trip to NCAA tournament
Washburn will be making its 11th overall trip to the NCAA tournament and 10th straight, all coming under head coach
Chris Herron. The Ichabods are 11-10 overall on the tournament and 10-8 in regional play. They're 6-3 in quarterfinal matches, 3-4 in the semifinal and 1-2 in the final. They advanced out of the regional in 2007 and finished as national semifinalists.
Washburn lost in the opening round of last year's tournament, 3-0 to UNK as the No. 6 seed. Concordia St. Paul, winner of six straight national championships, hosted and won last year's regional tournament.
Cox earns Daktronics all-region first team honor
Junior rightside hitter
Marissa Cox was named to the Daktronics all-Central Region first team as the awards were announced Tuesday. Cox, already a first team all-MIAA selection, will move onto the Daktronics All-America ballot.
Cox is second in the MIAA with 3.73 kills a set and .340 attack percentage. She's reached double figures in kills in eight straight matches and 28 total this year. She was named the MIAA hitter of the week five times this year.
Washburn has now had nine Daktronics all-region first team honorees. Cox will look to become the fourth Washburn player to earn Daktronics All-America.
Cox & Wittman named first team all-MIAA to join four other Washburn honorees
Washburn had six players named to the all-MIAA volleyball teams released Wednesday by the conference office. Junior rightside hitter
Marissa Cox and senior setter
Abby Wittman were named to the first team.
Senior libero
Kelsey Lewis was named to the second team, freshman outside hitter
Leanna Willer was named to the third team and senior outside hitter
Corrinne Stringer and freshman middle hitter
Sarah Vicory earned honorable mention.
Washburn has now had at least one MIAA first-teamer in each of the last five years and the two give head coach
Chris Herron 20 first team selections in his 12 years. Cox, Lewis and Wittman are both earning their second MIAA award as Wittman was named to the third team last year and Cox and Lewis got honorable mention.
Cox entered the week second in the MIAA with a .346 hitting percentage and second with 3.73 kills a set. She's reached double figures in kills seven straight times and 27 total times this year. She's hit .450 or better 10 times this year. Her attack percentage this year would be the sixth highest in school single-season history, five points lower than her .351 percentage last year that is the fifth highest at Washburn.
Wittman moved to third in career assists at Washburn this week, now with 3,771. She's second in the MIAA this year with 11.16 assists a set and first with 1,328 total assists. Both those totals are in the top 10 in Washburn single-season history. Wittman has 22 double-doubles this year.
Lewis is fifth in the conference with 4.50 digs a set and she's reached double figures 31 times. She's also fourth in the league with 0.36 service aces a set. Willer leads all freshmen in the MIAA with 3.19 kills a set and she also averages 3.15 digs.
Corrine Stringer is averaging 2.87 kills a set and hitting .243 while Vicory averages 2.13 kills and 0.89 blocks a set and is hitting .303 this year.
Ichabods climb back into top 10 in latest national poll
The Ichabods earned a No. 8 ranking in the AVCA national poll released November 18 after spending the last four weeks ranked 11th and nine straight weeks out of the top 10. Concordia St. Paul lost at Minnesota Duluth to fall out of the top spot in the nation. Tampa took over in first, UMD moved to second and Concordia moved to third. Central Missouri, which also beat UNK prior to the poll, is still fifth. Six of the top 11 teams in the nation come from the Central Region. Another poll will not be released until the end of the season.
Washburn looking for second region championship
The Lady Blues advanced out of the 2007 South Central Region tournament and went on to host the final eight teams in the NCAA national tournament. Washburn finished as a national semifinalist that year. With a 38-4 final record, the Lady Blues earned a No. 3 ranking in the final national poll, their highest ranking to finish the season.
Truman hosted the South Central Region tournament and Washburn was the No. 2 seed. The Lady Blues beat West Georgia and Central Missouri with sweeps in the first two rounds and then beat Truman 3-1 in the regional final.
Washburn then faced No. 1 Tampa in the national quarterfinal and fell behind 2-0 before coming back for a 3-2 win in front of school record 2,231 fans. Washburn then fell 3-1 to Western Washington, also in front of over 2,000 fans, in the semifinal. Concordia St. Paul beat WWU to win its first of six straight national titles.
