Notes

BALTIMORE, Md. – The Hampton University volleyball team will compete in the 2011 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Championships, which will be held Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Physical Education Complex on the campus of Coppin State University.

The Lady Pirates, the No. 3 seed in the MEAC Northern Division, will take on South Carolina State, the defending MEAC champion and No. 2 seed in the Southern Division, in Friday's quarterfinal round at 10 a.m.

The winner will advance to Saturday's semifinals match, taking on the winner of the Maryland Eastern Shore-North Carolina Central quarterfinal match.

UMES and Florida A&M are the top seeds from their respective divisions.

Hampton (12-13, 7-5 MEAC) will be making its first MEAC Championships appearance since 2008, when the Lady Pirates finished fourth in the Northern Division and fell to eventual champion Florida A&M in the quarterfinals.

The Lady Pirates clinched their first winning conference season since 2001 by splitting their last two regular-season matches — a four-set win at Delaware State on Friday, followed by a four-set road loss to MEAC Northern Division champion Maryland Eastern Shore this past Sunday.

This also marks the second time Hampton has won double-digit matches in a season during head coach Pedro Gonzalez's five-year tenure; Hampton went 11-19 in 2007, Gonzalez's first season.

Since opening the season 2-7 — a span in which Hampton lost in straight sets five times — the Lady Pirates have gone 10-6, starting with a five-set win over Florida Atlantic on Sept. 18 to close out the Holiday Inn Resort/Bethune-Cookman Invitational.

That win kicked off four straight for the Lady Pirates — a span in which Hampton also notched straight-set wins over Alabama State and North Carolina Central.

Hampton also opened conference play with three straight wins — beating Norfolk State, Coppin State and Howard in four sets each — before dropping its first MEAC match of the season to UMES on Oct. 14.

Hampton is 13-22 all-time against South Carolina State (17-15, 8-2 MEAC), and the Lady Bulldogs have won the last four meetings — including a three-set win last season on Sept. 17, 2010. The Lady Pirates last defeated SCSU on Sept. 21, 2007, in Gonzalez's first season, in five sets.

Gonzalez is 2-6 against South Carolina State.

To learn more about the 2011 MEAC Volleyball Championships, visit www.MEACsports.com.

For more information on Hampton University volleyball, please call the Office of Sports Information at (757) 727-5811, or visit the official Pirates website at www.hamptonpirates.com.