COMMERCE– After finishing with their highest win total in the last three seasons, the Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team enters the Lone Star Conference postseason tournament as the fifth seed with a record of 19-12 and a conference record of 13-7. They will face fourth-seeded Eastern New Mexico, who also finished 13-7 in the LSC, on Thursday in San Angelo.
 
WHO: A&M-Commerce vs. Eastern New Mexico
WHEN: Thursday, November 17 at 5 p.m.
WHERE: The Junell Center in San Angelo, Texas.
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The Lions enter the tournament having won six of their previous seven matches. Their six-game winning streak was broken in their final regular season game. Head coach Craig Case lamented the loss but said it was also a wake up call for his players on what they need to do to win games and advance in the tournament.
 
"It gave us the opportunity to step back and realize that the attention to detail we were using was what was helping us be successful," he said. "When we don't do that, we can't beat good teams. Luckily, we made that mistake in a match that wouldn't be the last match of the year. I'm glad we had that wake up call. It has been good for our players because they realize we have to get focused on the things that help us be successful. We have to apply those against another good team in Eastern New Mexico."
 
The Lions split the regular season series with ENMU. Both teams won their respective home matches. The Lions fell to the Greyhounds in four sets on Oct. 7 in Portales, N.M. but swept ENMU in three sets in their home match on Nov. 5. Case said both teams were affected by long travel times before their matches and he looks forward to playing them on a neutral site.
 
"They are just a really good team, from top to bottom," Case said of ENMU. "It will be really interesting and exciting to play them on a neutral court, knowing how good they are and knowing what their strengths and weaknesses are. And knowing how good we are and knowing what our strengths and weaknesses are. We'll see who takes control there."
 
Before the last game of the season, the Lions hadn't lost a match in nearly a month. In those six matches, Case believes his team had been playing with playoff intensity, something he hopes will benefit his team in the single-elimination postseason tournament.
 
"Hopefully that allows us to be in the moment more and not get too carried away with what is going on and just focus on playing volleyball and playing the best we can," he said. "If we can do that and just figure out to do that from point-to-point-to-point, I think the outcome will be favorable for us. But if we start to get too ahead of ourselves—too worried about how many points we are behind or too comfortable with how many points we are ahead—that's when you really get into trouble, especially in elimination play."
 
While slotted as the fifth seed, Case believes his team can make noise in the tournament and ultimately come out on top. He knows it will be a tough task, but he has confidence that his team can beat anyone when they are playing at their very best. He believes if his team plays up to its abilities on offense and defense, they have as good a shot as anyone to win the tournament.
 
"That's how you advance in postseason play," he said. "You are doing it efficiently and you are not burning a bunch of energy and playing longer matches than you need to in order to win. Hopefully we can come out and be efficient and just put together a complete match. When we've played a complete match this year, I don't know if anybody has beaten us. We have got to figure out how to put that all into play now moving forward in the first round and hopefully into the second and third rounds."
 
The winner of the match will continue on to the semifinal round. Both semifinal matches will be played Friday and the championship match will be played Saturday. The winner of the tournament receives an automatic berth into the NCAA Division II Volleyball Championship.