Scorpions have something to prove at NAIA nationals

All season long, the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College volleyball team has been a consistent win-ner and tried, mostly in vain, to improve its position in the NAIA national poll.

The 33-7 Scorpions’ best ranking was 18th in the final regular-season poll earlier this month.

UTB-TSC has a chance to show the pollsters and everyone else that it belongs higher in the rankings beginning today at the NAIA National Tournament in Columbia, Mo.

“We’ve accomplished the goals we had at the beginning of the season, and now we’ve made new goals,” said Katie Japp, UTB-TSC’s 6-foot junior outside hitter. “Our goal now is to finish at least in the top 10 at nationals, if not win it all. That’s what we want to do.”

The 12th-seeded Scorpions open the tournament at 11:15 a.m. today with a pool-play match against ninth-seeded Lewis-Clark State College of Idaho (25-6). They continue Pool B action against second-seeded California Baptist University (27-4) at 6 p.m. today.

Their final Pool B match is scheduled for 3:45 p.m. Thursday against 19th-seeded University of Virginia’s College at Wise (25-13).

According to UTB-TSC athletic officials, all of the Scorpions’ matches are scheduled to be webcast live on the school’s www.utb.edu website.

UTB-TSC must win two of its three pool-play matches to advance to the next stage of the tournament as the field is narrowed from 20 to 10 teams.

“I feel really excited because in the conference and regional tournaments, we beat everybody in three sets, which looks very good,” said Viviana Lozano, UTB-TSC’s sophomore libero. “We didn’t let anybody take a game from us. We have the momentum to go to nationals and win. I just feel like we’re going to go out there and do our best. It’s been a great season.”

The Scorpions are advancing to nationals for the first time at the NAIA level. They’ve gone to nationals previously as a junior col-lege in 1988, 1991, 1995, 1998 and 2004. Their best showing at nationals came in 1988 and ’91 when the Scorpions finished second both times under coach Jack Loff.

“We need to stay sharp and play at the high level we’ve been competing at,” first-year UTB-TSC coach Marcus Young said. “I think the team has improved throughout the season. Texas Wesleyan took us to four and five sets earlier in the season, and in the (finals of the) conference and regional tournaments, we beat them in three sets both times, so I think we’re peaking at the right time.”

The team left by van for Columbia, Mo., on Monday.

“I feel confident about where we’re at now at the end of the season, going to nationals,” said 6-2 freshman middle blocker Talita Milasauskas, the Red River Athletic Conference and Region VI player of the year. “We know it’s going to be hard, but we also know that we have a good team that can make it difficult for those teams over there (at nationals). We have to play hard and take it one step at a time.”