COLUMBIA Mo. – The Lewis-Clark State College women’s volleyball team had no problems with an early match Thursday morning, defeating the University of Virginia-Wise 30-17, 30-17, 30-19 in pool play at the NAIA National Tournament. 

The Warriors complete pool play with at match against No. 2-ranked California-Baptist at 4 p.m. today. The top two teams from each pool advance to the bracket portion of the tournament, which begins Friday morning. 

LCSC, which lost to Brownsville-Texas in its pool opener on Wednesday, is 1-1 in pool play. California-Baptist leads the pool at 2-0, while Virginia-Wise is 0-2. For LCSC to have a shot advancing out of pool play, it must either defeat California-Baptist or have Virginia-Wise defeat Brownsville-Texas when the two meet at 1:45 p.m.  

If either of those scenarios takes place, a three-way tie could ensue. The tiebreaking procedure begins with head-to-head competition and then goes to percentage of games won against the other tied teams. The fourth tiebreak is percentage of points won in matches against tied teams. 

Once it is determined who wins the tiebreaking process that team will have a bye, while the other two teams will play one game to 30 with the loser being eliminated. The winning team and the team that received the bye will then also have one game to 30. 

All of the matches in LCSC’s pool have been sweeps except the Warriors did win one game against Texas-Brownsville in the four-game match. 

Against Virginia-Wise, the Warriors dominated play in the match that began at 7 a.m., PDT. 

“We just played a little more relaxed,” LCSC coach Jen Greeny said. “We just played better and limited our unforced errors.” 

The Warriors hit .337 for the match and had 12 blocks, compared to 4.5 for the Cavaliers, who are appearing in their first national volleyball tournament. 

Sophomore Anile Clemente led the Warriors with 12 kills, while Julie Maciboba added seven. Dana Christiansen and Cintia Alessi had six kills each, while Brittney Kubik and Marie Balmer had five each. 

Lisa Davis had 22 assists, while Mindy Meyer added 20. Alessi added three service aces, while Lindsay Scott had 13 of the team’s 45 digs. Kubik led the blocking with three. 

Every Warrior played in at least two games in the match. 

“We are really going to have to play well against California-Baptist,” Greeny said. “They are a very good team.” 

California-Baptist has lost only four matches this season, including all three meetings with No. 1-ranked Fresno Pacific. Its other loss is to Western Washington, an NCAA Division II school.