AKRON, Ohio — After a rough conference slate, the Mountaineers battled in crunch time to make their first-ever Mid-American Conference Championship.
No. 6 WVU (8-8-2) find itself in the championship after defeating No. 3-seed SIU-Edwardsville on Tuesday and No. 2-seed Western Michigan on Friday. A win will give the Mountaineers their first conference title since 1992.
No. 4-seed BGSU defeated WVU 3-0 in the regular season on Oct. 26 in Bowling Green, Ohio. The Falcons advance to the tournament on a four-win streak after defeating No. 5-seed Northern Illinois in overtime on Tuesday and No. 1-seed Akron Friday.
Whichever team wins the conference title gets an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament.
WVU Volleyball falls in five sets to Texas Tech
West Virginia fell to Texas Tech in a five-set thriller Saturday in Morgantown, snapping the Red Raiders’ six-game down skid and tacking on another loss to WVU’s three-game streak.
The Mountaineers (11-15, 2-11 Big 12) picked up wins in the first and fourth sets, but the Red Raiders (15-12, 5-8) came back from a 12-11 deficit stringing together a 3-2 run to end the nail-biter. The final set scores for West Virginia were 25-16, 24-26, 19-25, 25-23 and 13-15.
Three Mountaineers had double-digit stat lines in the loss, helping post a season-high 69 kills while hitting .304. Briana Lynch and Katelyn Evans each had 18 kills, while Erin Slinde had 13. Lacey Zerwas added a career-high 62 assists plus eight digs, five kills and three aces.
Texas Tech hit .276 while registering 70 kills, 60 digs and six blocks.
WVU next faces Oklahoma on Friday — its final road game of the year. First serve is at 7 p.m.
