As the race for in Atlantic Sun Conference heats up, the Stetson volleyball team will head north to cooler temperatures this weekend for a pair of key road matches.
The Hatters (14-8, 5-3 A-Sun) will visit Lipscomb (14-7, 7-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday night in a match broadcast live on ESPN3.com and the WatchESPN app for mobile devices.
On Saturday, Stetson will visit Northern Kentucky (15-7, 4-4) for a 1 p.m. match that will air live on ASun.TV.
The Hatters currently occupy third place in the conference standings, two games behind A-Sun co-leaders Lipscomb and FGCU. Northern Kentucky is a game behind Stetson in fourth place.
"(These matches) are really important for all of us," Stetson head coach Kristina Hernandez said. "It is the second time we are playing each other. We are all still in a position for 1 through 4 right now, and we all understand that playing each other now is going to have an effect on the overall finish."
Stetson will be looking to end a short two-game conference losing streak which includes Saturday's disappointing five-set loss to FGCU in a contest the Hatters led 2-0 at intermission.
"We obviously want to be able to bounce back and be really competitive this weekend," Hernandez said. "We have been focusing on not giving away so many strings of points. That has been my biggest focus in practice that when we are losing one or two points, we are able to side-out immediately and not have these long strings where we are getting into big ruts. It's a learning process, but it is something we have to be able to do when we play the top teams."
Stetson defeated Northern Kentucky 3-0 back on Oct. 17 in DeLand, but dropped a 3-1 match to Lipscomb the very next day.
"I want to make sure we are playing Lipscomb more competitively (than last time), because I felt we were kind of in and out that match," Hernandez said. "NKU just had a big win against Lipscomb, so we need to be prepared for them to be better. Overall, it is going to be a competitive weekend, we just want to make sure we are prepared in every aspect."
In addition to the live broadcasts, both host schools will be providing live stats of this weekend's matches. The Stetson twitter feed and the HatCheck text messaging system will provide updates as well.
