Mizuno GLIAC/GLVC Crossover Tournament Webpage
October 8, 2012 – The Hillsdale College volleyball team heads into this weekend's Mizuno GLIAC/GLVC Crossover Tournament in a much different place, both literally and symbolically.
The fifth annual matchup of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the Great Lakes Valley Conference will start Friday morning at the Great Lakes Center, located in Aurora, Illinois. This volleyball-specific facility is the perfect spot to host Division II's largest
volleyball tournament, pairing up two strong conferences against one another, and it's a tournament where the Chargers have enjoyed great success over the years.
Hillsdale is 10-2 in four all-time trips to the crossover tournament, and has won six straight crossover matches. These matches are not only enjoyable for the equitable level of competition they provide, but can play major factors in regional rankings, the first of which will be out later this month. A team's won-loss record against teams from within its own region is an important category in determining postseason seeds at the end of the regular season and conference tournaments. Hillsdale's 6-0 record at this tournament over the past two years was significant in it being picked as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional Tournament in 2010 and 2011.
However, 2012 is a new year, and the Chargers make the trek to the west side of the Chicagoland area with a much younger squad. This team features just one senior (middle hitter Lauren Grover) and six freshmen on the active roster, all of whom saw plenty of playing time in last weekend's wins over Wayne State and Findlay. Those two wins gave the Chargers the GLIAC's number 3 overall seed entering the tournament.
The Chargers open the tournament at 11:30 a.m. (CDT) Friday versus William Jewell. Friday's second match will start at 5:30 p.m. CDT against Rockhurst. Hillsdale's three-match stay at the tournament will be wrapped up at 1 p.m. CDT against Missouri S&T in a rematch of the 2011 Midwest Regional Tournament quarterfinals. The Miners are tied with the University of Indianapolis with a perfect 9-0 record in the GLVC and have risen as a power in the region over the past few seasons.
Achieving that number 3 seed signifies strong progress by this team, considering its experience level and how it started the season. Hillsdale started off 0-6 against one of the nation's toughest schedules. Seven of the Chargers' first eight opponents have been nationally ranked at one point during the season. But Hillsdale is 8-2 in its last 10 matches, and showed the kind of grit and resiliency a successful team needs in five-set wins over Wayne State and Findlay last weekend. In both matches, the Chargers overcame stretches of inconsistent play to bounce back to force the action, making big plays when they counted the most to come up with the victory.
Sophomore Bailey Lindner enters this year's crossover tournament playing her best volleyball of her young career. Last week, she rang up 66 digs in two matches, including a school-record 37 in Saturday's win over Findlay. That dig total is the second-highest in a single match this season and the fourth highest in all of the NCAA Division II this season.