HOUSTON, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi volleyball team is set to play in the Adidas Invitational Friday and Saturday, hosted by Rice at the Tudor Fieldhouse.
The tournament features fours teams, all of whom made an appearance in the NCAA Tournament Last Season. A&M-Corpus Christi will take on Texas Tech (6-0) Friday at 3 p.m. with a double-header set for Saturday against Rice (5-1) and Brown (2-2) at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m., respectively.
The match against the hosting Owls will be streamed on CUSA.tv.
This will be the third tournament of the season for the Islanders after competing in the Ameritas Players Challenge opening weekend at preseason No. 1 ranked Nebraska. During the final match of the tournament against Tulsa, senior
Carissa Barnes broke the program and the Devaney Sports Center record for most digs in a match at 45, putting her on the All-Tournament team.
A&M-Corpus Christi put on the Islanders Classic for the program's second tournament of the season, hosting Sam Houston, SMU and Indiana. Senior
Faith Panhans and sophomore
Leah Stolfus were selected to the All-Tournament team. Panhans had 69 assists and 19 kills while Stolfus was the team-leader in kills every match to total 34 and average 3.78 kills per set.
Stolfus is the season leader in kills with 82, kills per set at 2.93 and points at 91. Sophomore
Kyndal Payne follows her up in every category with 71 kills, 2.54 kills per set and 79 points.
Defensively, Barnes records a team-high 145 digs with a 5.18 digs per set average while also recording a team-high nine service aces. Payne sits at 89 digs, the second highest on the team.
Texas Tech goes into the weekend undefeated, garnering big wins over Notre Dame and Georgia. This will be just the fourth meeting between the Red Raiders and the Islanders, with the last match having been played in 2014.
Brown enters the tournament in an even split, both winning and dropping two matches. The ivy league program will face the Islanders for the first time since 2001 and second time ever.
Rice has just one loss on the season so far and it was to No. 18 Oregon where the Owls were edged out 3-2. Most recently, Rice secured a 3-0 win against Southland competitor McNeese. The Islanders topped the Owls 3-1 in the last meeting between the two programs in 2017.
"This will be another challenging weekend for us," said head coach
Steve Greene. "All four teams, including us, were in the NCAA Tournament last year so there should be some tough competition. We will be utilizing different lineups to try more things as we continue to prepare for our conference schedule."
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