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NWC Earns No. 11 Seed, Gets Rematch with Grizzlies
By RANDAL HOROBIK
Tribune Sports Editor
It will be a classic frontier showdown as the Northwest College Trappers (26-8) face the Missouri State-West Plains Grizzlies (24-8) in the opening round of the 2009 NJCAA national volleyball tournament next week. The pairing was made official Wednesday morning when the 16-school bracket was unveiled by the seeding committee.
The first-round contest in Council Bluffs, Iowa, will mark the second meeting this season between the two schools. Northwest and Missouri State-West Plains tangled in pool play at the Miami-Dade tournament just over a month ago with the Grizzlies scoring a 25-15, 25-15, 25-17 win.
"West Plains has a great team," said Northwest College head volleyball coach Flavia Siqueira. "Their outside hitter is very powerful and can hit over blocks most of the time. Their setter is also very smart and creates plays that can trick the opponent."
In Miami, the Trappers recovered from their loss to the Grizzlies to win three consecutive matches against top-13 opponents to capture the tournament title. This time around, there's not that sort of margin for error. A loss in the Trappers' tournament opener would send the team to the consolation side of the bracket, leaving ninth place as their highest possible finish.
"We are a more focused team now than we were when we played them in Miami," Siqueira noted. "Hopefully, this will be a different match up."
Future Miami-Dade tournament MVP Paula Barros had seven kills and Mayara Conilho added six for the Trappers in their first encounter with Missouri State. The Grizzlies are one of four teams in the 16-school national tournament field that Northwest College has faced this season. The Trappers are 2-2 in those contests.
Match time could also be an issue for both teams at the national tournament. The contest is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. mountain time, a shift of several hours from the Trappers' regular afternoon and evening matches, but something for which the NWC coaching staff was prepared.
"We started to work out at 7 a.m., because I knew there was a possibility of playing an early match," said Siqueira.
The Trappers' coach is familiar with many of the quirks of national tournament play. As a member of the Western Nebraska roster, Siqueira played in the national tournament two years, competing on teams that placed among the top four both years.
"It was an amazing feeling then (as a player) and it is an amazing feeling now," Siqueira said. "It was an honor to know that I played for a great team, and it is an honor now to coach a great team."
While the national tournament might be a familiar old friend to the Trappers' coach, the players on the NWC roster will be getting their first introduction to junior college volleyball's biggest stage.
"This is a life experience for my players," Siqueira said. "A few of them still cannot understand the level of volleyball they are going to face. I hope we can control our anxiety and focus throughout the tournament. We are only thinking one day at a time. First, think about West Plains and do our best to move forward. Our goal is to play the best volleyball we can and perform at the highest level."
Northwest College will depart from Billings on Tuesday morning to fly into Omaha, Neb., before making the short trip across the Missouri River into Council Bluffs, Iowa. A team send-off is in the works for Monday afternoon, however details and the time of that event were still being worked out when today's paper went to press.