Pioneers anxious to show their stuff in Sioux City

This holiday season, no doubt one of the items near the top of the list of things for which to be thankful for Jim Giacomazzi and the Wayland Baptist volleyball team is a trip to Sioux City, Iowa. That's where, in a few short days, the Pioneers will continue their first-ever experience with the NAIA Volleyball National Championships.
 
"We feel pretty good right now," Giacomazzi said before the team left Saturday on their 17-hour drive to Sioux City, where national championship play begins on Tuesday for 24 teams, including 19^th-ranked Wayland (31-6). The Pioneers will practice in Gateway Arena at Tyson Events Center for the first time on Sunday, attend a banquet Monday evening then start play at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday against No. 9 Vanguard, Calif. (22-6), a team Wayland already has faced this season. The Pioneers play their next two matches at 5:45 p.m. – on Wednesday against fifth-ranked Northwestern College (34-2) of Iowa and on Thursday against No. 23 Spring Hill (36-3) of Alabama.
 
"We're pleased with the bracketing for us. Of course, we're happy to be there in the first place," said Giacomazzi, whose Pioneers – as the eighth at-large team taken – were the last team to make it into the 36-school national championship field.
 
"It should be a slugfest. Whoever brings their 'A' game will survive," the coach said of Wayland's pool. "We should all be the same seed; we all seem evenly matched. One team only has two losses, one team has three and two teams have six. Most all of us can say all of our losses were to ranked teams.
 
"Again, you have to bring you're 'A' game into any national championship tournament. Anybody can beat anybody on any given day."
 
With a few adjustments, the 24 final-site teams were divided into six four-team pools based on their NAIA Top 25 rankings, with each pool getting two teams that earned opening-round byes and two that won opening-round matches. Wayland, which defeated Ottawa, Kan., in three, and Spring Hill, which beat Xavier, La., in five, were opening-round winners.
 
Giacomazzi said Wayland was in line to be slotted in the same pool with Sooner Athletic Conference rival Oklahoma Baptist, ranked No. 7.
 
"The tournament committee has the right to move teams to another pool so that teams from the same conference don't have to play each other," the coach explained of how the bracket was adjusted to keep WBU and OBU from being in the same pool.
 
The two teams with the best head-to-head record in each pool after Thursday advance to single-elimination bracket play on Friday and Saturday. The top four seeds gain byes into the quarterfinals while the other eight teams pair off in matches Friday morning for the right to move on to the quarters that night.
 
The semifinals and finals are on Saturday.
 
"This is a unique way of running a tournament to allow as many teams at the final site," Giacomazzi said. "It's about as fair as you can make it."
 
Wayland's opening match will be a rematch of the ninth outing of the season for the Pioneers, who played Vanguard as part of a tournament hosted by Menlo College in Atherton, Calif., on Sept. 7. Vanguard, of Costa Mesa, Calif., prevailed in four, taking the first two games in close 25-23 and 26-24 scores before Wayland fought back to win game three, 25-21. The Lions then finished out the match, 25-16.
 
Giacomazzi said Wayland is "a lot different team" than the one that faced Vanguard in early September.
 
"We weren't running at 100 percent when we were out there (in California)," he said. "Natasha (Giacomazzi) is able to play now. She adds a little more defense and court awareness for us."
 
The coach said his daughter, who missed the first part of the season with a groin injury, could make a big difference in the rematch.
 
"Vanguard did a good job tipping on us, and we never adjusted," he said. "We're much better defensively in the back row now, and our blocking is better, so that helps us."
 
Vanguard will be one of five California teams from the Golden State Athletic Conference in Sioux City, along with defending national champion Concordia, ranked second, and No. 3 Biola.
 
"They're in one of the toughest conferences in the country in the GSAC, so week-in and week-out they have to bring their 'A' game," Giacomazzi said.
 
Because Vanguard did not play an opening-round national championship match, the Lions' last outing was way back on Nov. 16. That means the Lions will have not played in 17 days when they take the floor on Tuesday.
 
"It's hard being off 2½ weeks," Giacomazzi said.
 
As a result, Wayland will look to get off to a fast start.
 
"We have a better shot of coming out fast and maybe jumping on them early," Giacomazzi said.
 
While the Pioneers' main focus is on Vanguard, they also have to prepare for both Northwestern and Spring Hill. Coaches will have a chance to scout upcoming opponents once they arrive in Sioux City, of course, but Wayland will already know a thing or two about Northwestern since OBU faced the Red Raiders at a tournament in Hastings, Neb. Northwestern, then ranked 23^rd, won in five, 28-26, 25-20, 22-25, 22-25, 15-8. Northwestern also played Ottawa, Kan., the team Wayland beat in the national championship opening-round, early in the season. Like the Pioneers, Northwestern also won in three.
 
"We need to win two of the matches (in order to advance out of pool play)," Giacomazzi said. "Our goal after winning the first one is to win the next one. We'll start focusing on that one after the first one, getting things organized so we can be ready to play them with some sort of intelligence…know what their trends are, who their big hitters are, what kind of defense they run, what their serve-receive is like."
 
Maybe more than knowing what the opponent does well is understanding what your own team's strong points are, and Giacomazzi is excited in that regard.
 
"I know how our team has improved and how our team works, and the desire this team has to be successful. Those are all positive attributes," he said. "No (Wayland) team has gone past Thanksgiving, so this is kind of fun.
 
"The girls are excited about getting up there and showing their wares. They're excited about saying, 'Hey, this is us. This is what we can do, and we think we can do as well or better than you guys."
 
NOTES: Wayland will not have the services of junior middle hitter Mackenzie Clark in Iowa. Clark has missed the last four matches with a concussion issue…All matches from Sioux City will be streamed. A charge is associated with video streaming, provided by the NAIA, while audio streaming, provided by Wayland and Matt and Genene Driskill, is free. Links are available at www.wbuathletics.com.