The Florida A&M Lady Rattlers (14-12) will face off against the No. 14/12 Florida Gators, Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the first round of the 2008 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship on the campus of the University of Florida (Gainesville), as announced by the 2008 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Committee Sunday evening.
The Lady Rattlers, winners of eight straight MEAC championship titles, received the leagues’ automatic bid to the NCAA championship. Florida A&M concluded the regular season with a 14-12 overall record and 7-1 record in conference play.
Florida A&M will make their eighth consecutive NCAA volleyball postseason appearance and will face the Florida Gators for the third time in postseason play. Florida leads the series 3-0. The most recent match-up was a 3-0 shut out in 2006.
Florida will compete in the championship for the 18th consecutive year and 19th time in program history. The Gators will host the first round for the 17th straight time after concluding the regular season with a 25-3 overall mark including a 14-0 record at home. Florida captured their 18th consecutive SEC title with a 3-2 win over South Carolina. They finished the regular season with a 3-0 sweep at UNLV on Saturday.
Along with Florida A&M and host Florida, Colorado State and Florida International round out the Gainesville Regional. Colorado State will face Florida International on Friday at 5 p.m. The winners of both matches will meet on Saturday in second-round action at 7:30 p.m. for a chance to advance to the Sweet 16.
Overall, 64 teams make up the bracket for the 2008 NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship. Thirty-one conferences were awarded automatic qualification, and the remaining 33 positions were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket.
The top 16 teams were seeded nationally and placed within four regions. The teams tabbed as the top four seeds were No. 1 Pennsylvania State University; No. 2 Stanford University; No. 3 University of Texas at Austin; and No. 4 University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Team pairings were determined by geographical proximity, with the exception that teams from the same conference were not paired during the first and second rounds.
The Pacific-10 Conference led all conferences with six teams selected. The Big Ten Conference and West Coast Conference garnered five teams each in the field while the Big 12 Conference and Southeastern Conference each have four teams in the tournament. Two teams, Penn State and Stanford have earned bids to all 28 championships. Four teams are making their initial appearances in the tournament: Furman University, North Dakota State University, Portland State University, and Tulane University.
Posted By: Reginald Culpepper
Monday, December 1st 2008 at 3:18AM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
