INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- It's official! The Mercyhurst College volleyball team is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year, as announced by the NCAA Sunday night.
The Lakers earned the seventh seed in the eight-team Atlantic Regional and will play No. 2 Lock Haven at host institution and top-ranked California University on Thursday, Nov. 19 at a time to be determined.
“As we traveled this year we talked a lot about the banners in different gyms and how we wanted our banner in our gym to be one without missing years, so clearly we’re excited about our selection," said head coach
Ryan Patton. "And when we look back to the beginning of the year, the goal the team set was to go farther than we did last year. Now that we’re in a position to accomplish this, we’re excited about the opportunity.”
Mercyhurst (20-12) will square off against the Lady Eagles (32-5) for the second time this season and for the second-straight year in the postseason. A year ago, Lock Haven blanked the Lakers in the second round of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference tournament before taking a 3-0 decision over Mercyhurst in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
This season, LHU took a 3-1 win in the teams' only meeting on Oct. 9 in a PSAC Crossover Weekend.
“There were three distinct times at the very end of the season that we went into a match pretty sure that ‘if we don’t win here, we’re not going to get in' (to the NCAA Tournament) and in each of those matches we managed to win. So while we missed getting post-season experience in the PSAC playoffs this year, we most definitely came through in some moments of truth that had a post-season feel to us," said Patton.
To read the official NCAA announcement and to view all eight regional brackets, please click
here.
NCAA Atlantic Regional
Hosted by California University of Pennsylvania, California, Pennsylvania – November 19-21
No. 1 California (Pennsylvania) (32-4) vs. No. 8 Chowan (27-8)
No. 2 Lock Haven (31-5) vs. No. 7 Mercyhurst (18-11)
No. 3 Clarion (24-8) vs. No. 6 Edinboro (21-12)
No. 4 Gannon (22-9) vs. No. 5 Wheeling Jesuit (32-5)