The 39-3 Cougars earned the No. 2 seed at the tournament and will face Wallace State Community College-Hanceville Thursday, Nov. 19 at 10 a.m. (MST). Wallace State enters the tournament with a 34-4 record. A win in the first round would send the Cougars into a 4:30 p.m. (MST) contest Thursday against the winner of Frank Phillips and San Jacinto College match. The tournament runs through Saturday.
WNCC coach Giovana Melo said she likes being seeded No. 2 since it takes some of the pressure off as being the favorite. Salt Lake Community College, who defeated WNCC back in the first weekend in September, leapfrogged the Cougars to garner the No. 1 seeding. WNCC was No. 3 in the final regular season polls, while Salt Lake was No. 4. The top two teams in the polls, North Idaho College and Blinn College, lost in the regional tournament. Blinn won the championship last year.
“I am happy with the No. 2 seed,” Melo said. “The road to a national title will be very difficult. We have some pretty good opponents but we are going there to put up a big fight.”
WNCC is actually used to playing as a lower seed. In fact, back in 2007 when the Cougars won the national title, Salt Lake was the No. 1 seed and the Cougars were the No. 4 seed. That same year, Salt Lake defeated WNCC early in the season, and then the Cougars won a five-set thriller in the semi-finals of nationals on their way to the national title.
Right now the team is practicing for the upcoming tournament and Melo is researching their future opponents.
“I have not seen either of them play, but I think they are both pretty good,” she said. “They both have been going to the tourney in the past couple of years so we need to bring our A game.”
WNCC enters the tournament playing some of its best volleyball. After falling to NJC in five sets in the regular season Oct. 28, the Cougars rebounded in playing solidly in sweeping NJC twice to capture the regional title. And now since the seedings are out, the team can focus on the task at hand in winning a second national title in three years.
“I think the girls have been waiting on the seedings,” she said. “It will just take a lot of heart to bring home a championship.”
The Cougars are one of 12 teams with single-digit losses in the national tournament in a very balanced national tournament.
First round action match-ups include No. 3 Iowa Western (40-4) against No. 14 Temple College (22-21), No. 6 MSU-West Plains (24-8) against No. 11 Northwest (Wyo.) College (25-8), No. 7 San Jacinto (30-7) against No. 10 Frank Phillips College (28-10), No. 1 Salt Lake (27-7) against No. 16 Spartanburg Methodist (10-17), No. 9 Hillsborough Community College (29-8) against No. 8 Hutchinson (30-8), No. 5 Miami Dade (29-4) against No. 12 Panola College (26-7), and No. 4 College of Southern Idaho (28-6) against No. 13 Seminole State (22-15). The championship is slated for Saturday at 5:30 p.m. (MST).
Interesting match-ups in the tournament could be a WNCC and Northwest Wyoming as Melo and Trapper head coach Flavia Siqueira played with each other when they attended WNCC in 2003. Both coaches are in their second year as the head coach at their programs.
The contests can be heard live on Kozy 101.3 FM or on the Internet at www.kozy1013.com.
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