Patriots earn NCAA Volleyball Tournament bid

The Francis Marion University volleyball team learned Monday that it has received an at-large invitation to the 2008 NCAA Division II National Tournament, the third trip to the tournament for the program in the past 11 years.

Francis Marion (23-8), which lost in the Peach Belt Conference Tournament championship match on Sunday, is the fifth seed in the Southeast Regional and will face fourth-seeded Catawba College (20-10) on Friday (Nov. 21) at 5 p.m.  The regional will be hosted by Wingate University in its Cuddy Arena.  Ticket prices for each session will be $8 for adults, $5 for students, and $3 for children (ages 12 and under).

The host Bulldogs are the top seed with a 30-1 record and will play eighth-seeded Anderson University (24-13) on Friday at 7:30 p.m.  Friday's opening two matches will have third-seeded Armstrong Atlantic State University (25-6) playing sixth-seeded Lander University (22-11) at noon and second-seeded Carson-Newman College (24-14) playing seventh-seeded Lincoln Memorial University (21-13) at 2:30 p.m.

The winner of Friday's first two matches will meet in a semifinal contest on Saturday at 5 p.m., while FMU/Catawba winner will meet the Wingate/Anderson winner in the second semifinal at 7:30 p.m.  The regional title match is set for Sunday at 7 p.m.

The entire 64-team tournament field is comprised of eight 8-team regionals. The regional winners will advance to the finals, December 4-6, on the campus of a participating institution. Concordia University-St. Paul is the defending Division II national champion.

Like FMU, Catawba finished tied for second during its conference regular-season schedule.  However, the Indians lost in the first-round of the South Atlantic Conference Tournament.  Catawba leads the all-time series with Francis Marion 9-7, and captured a record-setting 5-set win in 2007 when the two squads combined to produce an NCAA-record 148 points in a 36-38, 37-35, 30-32, 30-25, 15-10 decision.

In each of Francis Marion's two previous trips to the NCAA Tournament, in 2005 and 1998, the Patriots fell to the University of Tampa on the Spartans' home court.  This will be Catawba's second trip to the NCAA Tournament, as the Indians lost a first-round match to the University of North Florida in 2001.

 Third-year FMU head coach Paul MacDonald has seen his squad win 17 of its last 21 matches.

Freshman Amanda Mitchell, one of four first-year players in the Patriots' regular rotation, paced FMU at the recent PBC Tournament and is averaging 2.42 kills per game.  Senior setter Jenna Kaiser directs the Patriot offense and averages 9.80 assists per game and 2.62 digs per game.  She has committed only two errors in her last 288 serving attempts, and she stands ninth on the PBC career list and second on the FMU all-time list for assists with 3,924. Sophomore libero Kelsie Deaton leads the Patriots in digs (3.50 per game), freshman Hallie Legg leads in service aces (0.29 per game), and sophomore Mallory Eggert leads in blocks (0.98 per game).

This will be Francis Marion's eighth appearance in post-season play over the program's 36-year history, including tournament appearances under NCAA, NAIA, and AIAW affiliations.