LAKE CHARLES—McNeese volleyball will make its 31^st Southland Conference Tournament appearance Friday as the 7^th seed and will begin tournament action at 4 p.m. against 2^nd seed Central Arkansas (24-4) at the Dugan Wellness Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. Matches 1 through 6 will be streamed on the Southland Digital Network, available via southland.org/live and the championship match will be an exclusive presentation of ESPN3.
 
McNeese (19-12), tied for fifth place in the league, will enter the tournament as the 7^th seed due to the tiebreaker rule. McNeese is making its third tournament appearance under fourth year head coach Ashleigh Fitzgerald.
 
In the last two years, McNeese was knocked out of the tournament by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, this year's tournament host. The Islanders defeated the Cowgirls in the opening round last year and in the semifinal round in 2015. 
 
The 19 wins are the most wins since 2007 and the Cowgirls will be looking for their 20^th win. The last time a McNeese team won 20 matches was in 2002 when that team posted a 20-13 record. The Cowgirls will enter the weekend having won five of their last six matches.
 
This will be the third match this season against UCA with the two previous matches going to five sets and the Cowgirls winning both. In the first match against UCA in Lake Charles on Oct. 14, McNeese held a 2-1 lead before UCA won the fourth set to even the match. The Cowgirls prevailed with a fifth set win to take the overall match. Both teams recently met just over a week ago in Conway and the Cowgirls pulled out the five set victory after dropping the first two sets.
 
Sophomore Shanna Spree, the only Cowgirl named to the All-Southland Conference team will lead the Cowgirls into the match with a .314 hitting percent, 36 service aces and 111 blocks.
 
The Tournament gets underway at 11 a.m. Friday with regular season champs and top seed Stephen F. Austin taking on no. 8 Abilene Christian. No. 4 Houston Baptist will face No. 5 Northwestern State at 1:30 p.m. followed by the McNeese and UCA match at 4 p.m. The final match of the day will have host and No. 3 Texas A&M-Corpus Christ taking on No. 6 Sam Houston State.