Kingsville - Making a triumphant return to the Lone Star Conference Tournament, the Texas A&M-Kingsville volleyball team is headed to San Angelo to take on the Tournament's hosts, the Angelo State Rambelles, in a Quarterfinals match set for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The Javelinas finished the regular season at 18-9 overall and 10-7 in conference play, and are returning to the LSC Tournament for the first time since 2023, when they made a historic run to the Tournament's Championship game.

The team's weekend will begin Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. at the LSC Volleyball Banquet, where the Conference will announce its All-LSC Teams and end-of-year awards. It will be streamed FREE on FloCollege here.

The Belles and Javelinas will act as Thursday's night cap, and a win would see the Javelinas play the winner of the 4-5 matchup between UT-Tyler and St. Mary's on Friday.

Tourney Fast Facts

The Javelinas' last LSC Tournament win came the last time it earned a tournament berth; in the 2023 season. That year, Kingsville earned the No.5 seed, beating No.4 Arkansas - Fort Smith, before knocking off No.1 Dallas Baptist to earn the first trip to the LSC Tournament Championship in program history. 

The Belles are the conference's reigning LSC Tournament Champs, having toppled the No.1-seeded West Texas Buffs to take the title last year. The last time ASU played in the tourney's 8-1 matchup, the team was on the flip side, entering the 2022 tournament as the No.8 seed and falling to No.1-seeded WT in three sets.

The last time the Belles and Hogs met in the Tournament was back in 2021, when the field was still 12 teams and each team entered the weekend as the No.1 seed in their division - they faced off in the Tournament's semifinals, with Angelo taking a five-set win.

Scouting the Competition: The Angelo State Rambelles | 21-7 (15-2)

The Rambelles enter the tournament with a conference-best eight-match win streak, which included wins over West Texas A&M and Lubbock Christian, both of which served as crucial tiebreakers that allowed ASU to secure the Regular Season Conference crown.

Much like their opponents, the Belles possess an incredibly potent offense, which ranks second in the LSC in kills per set (33rd in the nation), assists per set (22nd in the nation), and hitting percentage (31st in the nation). 

Outside hitter Madi Parrish has posted an incredible junior year in which she averages the second-most k/s (3.63) on the 20th-best hitting percentage (.263) in the LSC. She is one of three different Belles who hold a top-25 hitting percentage in the conference this year.

Javelina Quick Hitters:

• Earlier this season, the Javelinas reached the best start, record wise, in the history of the program. Since 1988, no TAMUK volleyball team had ever before held a 12-3 record through 15 matches
• Kingsville started Conference play with four straight wins, including a sweep of the Texas Woman's Pioneers in Denton, and a 3-2 upset of No.10 West Texas A&M in Kingsville - the first top-10 win for TAMUK since 2019. The middle of the LSC schedule saw the Hogs drop four of their next five matches before finding their stride once again, having won four in a row and five of their last six before a pair of losses ended the team's regular season
• The team now holds a 10-7 conference record and enters the LSC Tournament as the No.8 seed
• Kingsville's high-powered offense is, statistically, one of the most potent offenses in the conference - it averages the fourth-most kills per set, the fourth-most assists per set, and the fifth-highest attack percentage in the LSC
• The squad's defense has made great strides as the season has gone on as well, as it now ranks second in the conference in fewest opponents kills/s and fewest opponent digs/s
• Senior RS/S Rylan Pollard has stuffed the stat sheet in every possible way early in the year, bringing averages of 2.98 kills/s (16th in LSC), 4.91 assists/s, and 2.43 digs/s , as well as a .244 hitting percentage (24th in LSC) into the weekend. She has already posted 11 triple doubles this season, by far the most in the nation, including a 17k-28a-12d match with two service aces and three total blocks, as well as a match with 11k-27a-25d, and two aces - she has a triple double in back-to-back matches and three of her last four
• Pollard has won the LSC's weekly honor as both a Setter and an overall offensive player, becoming just the second player in the history of the conference to accomplish such a feat
• She added her second SOTW award this past week, becoming the fourth Javelina ever to win the award twice in the same season and the first since the Spring of 2021
• Junior MB Natalee Rush has been absolutely stellar in her third season with the Hogs, stepping into a large offensive roll and averaging a .431 attack percentage, the best in the conference and the third-best in the country
• Senior RS Kendall Harrington has been the epitome of efficiency early in the year, averaging 2.72 kills/s (23rd in LSC) while averaging a ridiculous .293 attack percentage (10th in LSC). She has already twice dropped single-match career highs in kills, with 16 in a five-set win over Harding and 18 in a five-set win over Southern Arkansas
• Harrington won her first ever LSC weekly honors earlier this season, bringing home the Offensive Player of the Week award for a weekend where she averaged 3.47 kills/s while swinging at .400, adding in eight digs and four total blocks
• Senior setter Elisa Carli, who led the LSC in service aces last season, has been stellar behind the service line again this year, her 39 total aces are tied for the fifth-most in the LSC - her 5.46 assists/s are also the 11th-most in the conference
• Defensively, junior DS/L Monique Gonzalez leads the team with 3.34 digs per set (17th in LSC), with senior OH Kerigan Baumgartner and sophomore DS/L Tayae Garcia not far behind, averaging 2.73 d/s and 2.72 d/s respectively