SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Oklahoma City University takes on Providence (Mont.) at 1 p.m. Dec. 3 at the Tyson Events Center in the NAIA women's volleyball championships.
The 16th-ranked Stars (33-1) face Morningside (Iowa) at 4 p.m. Dec. 4 and No. 1-ranked defending national champion Park (Mo.) at 2 p.m. Dec. 5. The top two teams from each pool reach bracket play Dec. 6.
OCU's first pool-play contest matches the No. 16-ranked and 17-ranked teams in the NAIA. The Stars own a win in their only matchup with a ranked team this season Aug. 15 against fourth-ranked Missouri Baptist 25-15, 25-11, 22-25, 25-27, 15-8.
The Stars are one of nine teams in the NAIA with at least 30 wins this year. OCU reached the NAIA Championships' final site for the third time among five national-tournament appearances.
Oklahoma City enters the NAIA Championships on a 32-match winning streak, the longest in program history. The Stars took their fourth consecutive Sooner Athletic Conference regular-season and tournament championships, their fifth 30-win season and first appearance in the NAIA top 25 in three years.
OCU features the SAC most valuable player and tournament MVP (Sophia Salak), conference defensive player of the year (Isabel Harwell) and SAC coach of the year (Kristen Coventon). Six Stars took all-conference honors.
Marijana Bjelobrk, a senior from Belgrade, Serbia, has 1,430 career kills, one shy of the all-time OCU record held by Xiaoting Ma. Salak, a sophomore from McKinney, Texas, ranks seventh nationally with 11.01 assists per set, and the Stars serve up 2.41 aces a set as a team to rank fifth in the NAIA.