SIOUX CITY, Iowa --- This is it. This is the big one. In pool play at the NAIA Volleyball National Championship the No. 2 seed vs. No. 3 seed matchup is the biggest match of all through the six matchups played in each pool. Biola Volleyball, the No. 3 seed, takes on MidAmerica Nazarene, the No. 2 seed, on Tuesday morning at 9:00 a.m. PT inside of the Tyson Event Center in Sioux City.
This is the third all-time meeting between these two programs, and it is the second time they have met at the NAIA National Championship final site. The last time these two sides went head-to-head was back in the national quarterfinals in 2012. Biola defeated the Pioneers 3-1 in that matchup to end MNU's second trip to the national tournament and push Biola along to what was a semifinal matchup with Concordia-Irvine.
Biola was the on-paper favorite in both previous matchups and won them both. The Eagles come into today's meeting as the underdog for the first time. Take a look at some of the specifics below.
Biola Volleyball begins its ninth and final tournament matchup in Sioux City with a big-time pool play matchup with No. 13 MidAmerica Nazarene. This matchup could very well determine the landscape of Pool D as it will give the winner a big leg up on one of the two spots that can advance out of the pool into single-elimination play. Biola clinched its spot in this tournament with a win in last week's opening round match against La Sierra back in La Mirada. MNU earned an automatic at-large berth out of the Heart of America conference by finishing as the conference co-champion and being ranked high enough to earn an opening round bye.
These two teams have not met this season, but they do share four opponents. Both teams faced Midland (Neb.), Grand View (Iowa), Columbia (Mo.) and Hastings (Neb.) at one point or the other throughout the season. MidAmerica went 0-5 against that group of opponents (they played Grand View twice). Biola was 1-3 against the shared opponents. On paper the Eagles were more successful as well, earning a win over Columbia and forcing two of the losses to go five sets.
Today's matchup will be a battle between one team that relies heavily on a handful of top-notch attackers and one team that relies heavily on its athletic defense, strong passing and spreading the ball around. MidAmerica Nazarene comes in with one of the most prolific attacks in the nation, ranking inside of the top-10 in hitting percentage and the top-25 in total kills. On the other hand, Biola is in the 30-40 range in each of those categories and relies a lot on its all-conference libero and the rest of its back row to withstand superior attacking teams.
The players to look out for in the Pioneers' front row are Gisele Silva (#2) and McKenzie Hayes (#10). Silva is an absolute monster outside and currently ranks second in the whole NAIA in kills with 560. Hayes plays opposite of her on the right side and is fourth on the team with 241 kills. She's hitting at a .266 clip and is one of two players on the squad that's been in on over 100 blocks this year, which makes her a dynamic threat for the Eagles' opponent.
The key to success for BU will be getting first-chance kills and serving well to take advantage of MNU's defense, which is not the team's strong suit. It Biola can force bad passes from the Pioneers' back row it will increase the Eagles' chances to avoid being subject to the Pioneers' most dangerous attack attempts. When MidAmerica has the opportunity to set who they want and the setter and attacker are in sync they can be hard to stop, which explains their 27-7 overall mark and high national ranking.
Even with a loss in this first game a team could still get out of the pool come Thursday, but it makes it a whole lot harder if you cannot win this first game. Because of that Head Coach
Aaron Seltzer and his squad have been pouring all they've got in terms of preparation into this match as they look to start off on the right foot.
Watch the match LIVE via
NAIANetwork.com. The NAIA offers a single-day video pass for $9.95, a pool play pass for $24.95, a tournament pass for $39.95 or an ALL tournament pass (all NAIA tournaments for 2016-17) for $75.00.
Biola is producing and audio-only live broadcast for free (featuring play-by-play from Josh Banker) at its own
video portal. The NAIA has an agreement that does not allow teams to produce live video of the match, but the video broadcast will be released in the on demand portion of our video portal 48 hours following the event.
The NAIA also provides live statistics of the match via DakStats Webcasts. Visit
this page for live statistics throughout the tournament. Fans can also follow us on our social media (@BiolaAthletics). Twitter updates will be available throughout the tournament and highlights, photos and more will be posted to our Facebook account.
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