Tournament PageMany teams and coaches – Wayland volleyball and
Jim Giacomazzi included – relish, even prefer, going into a competition as the underdog.
Well, that's not currently the case, and for sure not this weekend.
"We've been in a position to be the spoiler a lot of times and knock out the top seeds," Giacomazzi said. "This year we're putting a spoiler alert out there."
That's because this time the Pioneers are the No. 1 seed, the top dog, the proverbial team to beat as Wayland hosts the Sooner Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament. The top six teams in the conference converge on Hutcherson Center on Friday and Saturday, all trying to claim the SAC's automatic bid to the NAIA National Championships.
While the tournament begins at 11 a.m. Friday, the 20
th-ranked Pioneers (21-9) don't take the Hutcherson Center floor until 7 that night when Wayland hosts either fourth-seeded John Brown (22-10) or fifth-seeded Texas Wesleyan (14-18), which square off at 1 p.m. Oklahoma City (19-11), the third seed, and sixth-seeded Southwestern Assemblies of God (15-15) tip things off at 11 a.m., with the winner of that match meeting second-seeded Oklahoma Baptist (23-11) at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
The semifinal winners advance to the championship match at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
"We're excited about being able to host it and have a crowd," Giacomazzi said. "We'd love to give our fans an opportunity to come out here and get crazy and support us and for us to play well in front of them and show them that we've really improved a lot this year, and reward them with a quality match."
Admission is $5 per day, with non-school age children admitted free. Video streaming of the entire tournament will be available.
Wayland is hosting the SAC Tourney as a result of the Pioneers winning their first regular-season conference crown since sharing it in 1997; it's been 18 years since the Pioneers won it outright.
Giacomazzi said being the top seed and hosting is a nice change.
"It has a lot of pluses for us. We get to sleep in our own beds, eat food we're familiar with, . . . practice in a normal manner, and we don't have to deal with road weariness that comes with 5- or 6-hour drive."
The Pioneers have won 12 matches in a row, dating back to their last home loss on Sept. 30 to West Texas A&M. Wayland also has strung together six straight sweeps, including a 25-21, 25-22, 25-17 victory over Oklahoma Baptist last Friday that secured the conference championship.
"We have girls on our team who weren't even born the last time we won the conference championship," Giacomazzi said. "I think I have socks older than that.
"It's a lot of fun. We've had some very talented players over the last 7-8 years. They've gotten close to winning the conference championship but were always two or three games short, although we've gotten to win a couple of conference tournaments. There's been a lot of hard work, a lot of dedication, a lot of skin left on the floor."
As enjoyable as the season has been thus far, though, the Pioneers aren't satisfied.
Wayland would love to put together another post-season run like last season when the Pioneers – after falling to OBU in the conference tournament championship – won six matches in the NAIA National Championships before falling in the semifinals to eventual champion Texas-Brownsville.
And it all starts Friday night.
As the 20
th-ranked team, the Pioneers figure to be right on the edge of securing one of the nine or 10 at-large berths awarded to the highest-ranked non-conference tournament winners. In fact, Wayland was ranked 19
th last year when it was awarded the final at-large spot.
"The way the rankings are this year is a lot different than last year. Last year OBU had an automatic bid (as the 10
th-ranked team)," Giacomazzi said. "This year the only guarantee that our conference has of having a representative (at nationals) is whoever wins the conference tournament."
The36-team national championship field will be announced Sunday, Nov. 16, with opening round pairings released the following day. Wayland has put in a bid to host an opening-round match like last year when the Pioneers entertained Ottawa, Kan., but first the Pioneers have to get into the field, and the best way to do that is by winning the conference tournament.
"It's important for us to play well, stay focused and take care of business on our side of the net," Giacomazzi said. "We're going to focus and stay in tune because we've worked really hard to get where we are right now and our goal is to do a little bit of what we did last year."
And it all starts, he said, with "two more wins this weekend."
