#20 Mines vs. UAFS, Thursday, 4 p.m. MST [Live Stats] [Video] [Bracket] [Tournament Central] [Tickets]

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BACK TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
Colorado School of Mines will start its eighth consecutive trip to the NCAA Postseason tomorrow evening whey take on Heartland Conference Champion Arkansas-Fort Smith in the highly competitive 4/5-seed matchup. Mines enters as the #4-seed as the second straight season. Last season, they swept Texas Woman's in the opening round before falling to host Angelo State in five sets.

THE BRACKET
Mines and UAFS meet in the #4/#5 matchup, and will meet the winner between top-seed and host Angelo State and #8 Texas A&M-Kingsville. RMAC rivals MSU Denver and Colorado Mesa meet in the #2/#7 matchup, and #3 Tarleton State takes on #6 Regis in the final opening round game. The semifinals would be follow the next day with quarterfinal #1 at 4 p.m. and quarterfinal #2 at 6:30 p.m. The championship would be on Saturday, December 3 at 2 p.m. Full bracket can be found HERE.

NATIONAL RANKINGS
Host and top-seed Angelo State is the highest ranked team in the South Central Tournament at #12 in the latest AVCA Coaches Poll. Mines is at #20 while rival MSU Denver is one spot ahead in #19. Arkansas-Fort Smith and Tarleton State are just outside the Top-25.

MINES IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
As noted above, this is Mines' eighth straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament, and ninth overall. The Orediggers have an all-time record of 4-8 in the postseason and went 1-1 in last season's edition. 

ALL-REGION HONORS
This week as has been good to the Orediggers as both Ellie Monarch and Alanna Winfield picked up some more postseason recognition. First, Monarch was named First Team All-Region by the D2CCA on Tuesday. Then, earlier this afternoon, Monarch and Winfield were each recognized as AVCA Honorable Mention All-Region.

SCOUTING MINES
The Orediggers were one the top offensive teams in the nation as they are 21st in hitting percentage (.245), 15th in kills (14.08) and 13th in assists (13.24). They are also 31st in the nation with 2.18 blocks per game. Ellie Monarch leads the RMAC with a hitting percentage of .352, and is 10th in the league with an average of 0.92 blocks per game. RMAC Defensive Player of the Year Taryn Huber is second in digs per set (5.31) and eighth in aces (0.27). While Marina Hansen, fresh off a career performance in the RMAC Tournament Championship, is second in the league with a 10.98 a/s average.

SCOUTING UAFS
Back-to-back defending South Central Region Champion, UAFS (24-5) heads into this year's tournament as the Heartland Conference Regular Season and Tournament Champion. The Lady Lions are led by HC Player of the Year Emily Tripp who led the nation with 7.33 digs per set. Kennedi Coleman is the team's top offensive threat with a 4.09 kills per set average while hitting at a .243 clip.