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DWU volleyball lands in NAIA tourney field for second straight season, will host Saturday at Palace

marcus traxler, the daily republic, mitchell, s.d.
·4 min read

Nov. 14—MITCHELL — For the second consecutive season, the Dakota Wesleyan University volleyball team will be home to open NAIA national tournament play on Saturday, Nov. 19.

The sixth-ranked Tigers (22-7) will host Kansas Wesleyan in the NAIA opening round on Saturday. The match will be played at 7 p.m. at the Corn Palace.

It is one of 24 opening-round matches to take place on Nov. 19, with the 24 winners then advancing to the NAIA final site tournament, which will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 in Sioux City, Iowa.

The match will be played later Saturday evening to accommodate the already scheduled DWU women's basketball game against College of Saint Mary, which is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Corn Palace.

As expected, the Great Plains Athletic Conference is well-represented in the NAIA tournament field, with seven qualifiers and each of them hosting in the opening round. No. 2 Jamestown and No. 4 Concordia each qualified through the GPAC tournament, while No. 3 Midland, No. 6 DWU, No. 8 Northwestern and No. 15 Saint Mary (Neb.) all qualified, along with Hastings. Dordt, which dropped out of the final NAIA poll on Nov. 9, missed out on making the national tournament.

The Coyotes, who are from Salina, Kansas, have won their last nine matches, including a 3-2 win over Saint Mary (Kan.) on Nov. 12 that locked up the KCAC tournament championship title. That included a rally from a 10-6 deficit in the fifth set, winning the conference tournament for the first time since 2014.

KWU ranks 13th in the country in kills per set (13.45), 14th in the country in hitting percentage (.235) and 18th in the country in assists per set (12.5). Four hitters for KWU have at least 250 kills on the season, including Rylee Serpan with 370 kills in 34 matches and Morgan Bryand with 343. Elizabeth Hardacre and Maddy Beckett have 298 and 252 kills, respectively. Both Hardace and Serpan rank in the top-40 nationally in hitting percentage.

DWU won nine of its final 10 games in the regular season, including three ranked victories in October, and then defeated Northwestern in the opening game of the GPAC tournament on Nov. 5 in five sets. The Tigers then dropped a 3-0 match against Jamestown on Nov. 9 in the GPAC tournament semifinals, with the Jimmies eventually winning the GPAC championship over Concordia in four sets.

The Tigers rank No. 10 in assists per set (12.66) and No. 19 in the country in kills per set (13.37). DWU's Madeline Else ranks No. 2 in the country in assists per set (11.72), while Ady Dwight is No. 2 in the country in kills per set (4.70) and third nationally in total kills (512).

In 2021, the Tigers hosted a national tournament match for the first time and picked up its first victory in NAIA tournament history at the Corn palace, defeating Saint Xavier (Ill.) by a 3-1 score.

A win for DWU in this year's opening round would put the Tigers at the top of a three-team pod at the NAIA final site event in Sioux City. The three-team pods will play round-robin matches over the first three days of the tournament, with the winning team moving ahead to the NAIA quarterfinals on Saturday, Dec. 3.

NAIA women's volleyball national championship

Rankings as of Nov. 9 poll. — Winners advance to 24-team final site.

Opening round — Nov. 19

Mobile (Ala.) (24-12) at No. 1 Eastern Oregon (30-2)

St. Ambrose (Iowa) (24-9) at No. 2 Jamestown (N.D.) (31-2)

Indiana Tech (28-7) at No. 3 Midland (Neb.) (25-4)

Florida College (28-9) at No. T4 Concordia (Neb.) (23-5)

Benedictine Mesa (Ariz.) (24-6) at No. T4 Corban (Ore.) (28-4)

Kansas Wesleyan (28-6) at No. 6 Dakota Wesleyan (22-7)

Bryan (Tenn.) (25-7) at No. 12 Missouri Baptist (29-3)

Philander Smith (Ark.) (22-9) at No. 8 Northwestern (Iowa) (21-7)

Xavier (La.) (21-8) at No. 7 SAGU (Texas) (32-0)

Point Park (Pa.) (25-6) at No. 9 Viterbo (Wis.) (28-7)

Blue Mountain (Miss.) (34-2) at No. 10 MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) (28-1)

Campbellsville (Ky.) (21-6) at No. 11 Taylor (Ind.) (30-5)

Cumberland (Tenn.) (24-7) at No. 13 Park (Mo.) (26-5)

John Brown (Ark.) (22-9) at No. 14 Bellevue (Neb.) (26-7)

IU Kokomo (Ind.) (30-6) at No. 15 College of Saint Mary (Neb.) (19-8)

St. Thomas (Fla.) (19-5) at No. 20 Cornerstone (Mich.) (32-3)

Saint Xavier (Ill.) (23-8) at No. 19 Central Methodist (Mo.) (21-8)

Park Gilbert (Ariz.) (24-10) at No. 21 Marian (Ind.) (23-6)

Rocky Mountain (Mont.) (20-14) at No. 18 Indiana Wesleyan (24-7)

No. 25 Westmont (Calif.) (22-6) at No. 17 Montana Tech (24-8)

No. 22 Ottawa (Kan.) (25-10) at No. 16 Columbia College (Mont.) (26-10)

William Jessup (Calif.) (17-9) at Southern Oregon (21-10)

Bethel (Ind.) (21-11) at No. 22 Columbia International (S.C.) (35-7)

No. 24 Texas Wesleyan (26-5) at Hastings (Neb.) (19-13)