Nov. 25, 2007
LAS VEGAS - By virtue of winning the 2007 Mountain West Conference Volleyball Championship, the UNLV Rebels earned the conference's automatic bid into the 2007 NCAA Tournament. The Rebels will not have to travel far for their first postseason appearance, as they will head to Los Angeles for the four-team regional hosted by USC at the Galen Center. UNLV, who enters the regional as the second seed, will play the third-seeded Long Beach State 49ers on Friday, Nov. 30 at 5:00 pm.
"I'm really proud of the girls and how they've worked to get here," noted UNLV head coach Allison Keeley. "It wasn't an easy road, but we persevered. Winning the conference tournament was a thrill. We planned all along for it and it was nice to see it come to fruition. It is nice to see our seniors (Maria Aladjova, Brittani Lumsden, Lauren Miramontes and Jada Walker) get a proper send off. They've been great leaders for this team"
The USC Women of Troy comes into the regional as the fifth-seed nationally and top-seed at the site. Pepperdine rounds out the four-team regional, as the Waves will play USC at 7:00 pm on Friday night.
The first and second round matches will be streamed online by USC. For those wishing to watch, you will be able to find links to each at USCTrojans.com and/or UNLVRebels.com.
The NCAA Tournament is broken down into 16 regional sites. The Stanford Cardinal enters the tournament as the top-seeded squad. The third and fourth round sites are set for Stanford, Calif., Gainesville, Fla., University Park, Pa., and Madison, Wisc. UNLV has been placed in the Gainesville, Fla., region.
Team Information:
USC: 25-4 overall, 14-4 Pac-10 (3rd Place)
UNLV: 24-5 overall, 12-4 Mountain West (2nd Place)
Long Beach State: 25-6 overall, 14-2 Big West (2nd Place)
Pepperdine: 18-10 overall, 9-5 West Coast (3rd Place)
UNLV vs. Regional Opponents:
vs. USC: The Women of Troy lead the all-time series 1-0, with a 3-1 win in Las Vegas on Sept. 18, 1999.
vs. Long Beach State: The 49ers lead the all-time series 5-2, with the LBSU winning the last two meetings. LBSU won in Las Vegas on Sept. 10, 2005 by a score of 3-2 and more recently, in Long Beach by a 3-1 margin on Sept. 15, 2006.
vs. Pepperdine: The all-time series is tied 1-1. UNLV won 3-1 on Sept. 7, 1985 in Albuquerque, N.M., while the Waves won 3-0 on Sept. 23, 1999 in Malibu, Calif.
