COMMERCE– The Texas A&M University-Commerce volleyball team heads out on the road for their longest road trip of the season. The Lions travel to Silver City, N.M. to face Western New Mexico on Friday. The Lions will then travel to Portales, N.M. on Saturday to face Eastern New Mexico.
 
Western New Mexico
WHO: Texas A&M-Commerce (17-9, 12-4 LSC) vs. Western New Mexico (8-16, 8-8 LSC)
WHERE: Drag's Court in Silver City, N.M.
WHEN: Friday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. CDT
LIVE STATS: Click HERE
LIVE VIDEO: portal.stretchinternet.com/wnmu/
 
Eastern New Mexico
WHO: Texas A&M-Commerce vs. Eastern New Mexico (11-15, 8-8 LSC)
WHERE: Greyhound Arena in Portales, N.M.
WHEN: Saturday, Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. CDT
LIVE STATS: Click HERE
LIVE VIDEO: goeasternathletics.com/watch/?Live=694&type=Live
 
The Lions are coming off of a five-set win over Cameron on Tuesday. The Lions and Aggies battled back and forth throughout the match. The Lions struggled but found a way to win the match. Head coach Craig Case wasn't surprised at the way Cameron played and was pleased his team found a way to win even on a night they didn't play their best.
 
"I watched about seven or eight matches of Cameron playing volleyball and that's the best they have played all year," Case said. "It is fun to play against somebody when they are playing their best. They have a good team and that was a fun, competitive volleyball match. I thought our team did a really good job of, when we weren't playing well, staying competitive and still fighting so that Cameron didn't get a ton of momentum. That was the big key, to stay competitive and stay focused on what we were trying to do. In the end, that carried us to victory."
 
It is the seventh match the Lions have played that has gone to a fifth set. After losing their first two matches that went to five sets, the Lions have now won five games in a row when going to a fifth set. Case doesn't think his team is preaching anything differently, but thinks his team has been focused in those matches and has benefitted from four of those five matches being at home.
 
"I don't think we are doing anything different or talking about anything different than anybody else is," he said. "A couple of those we have gotten lucky and a couple of those we have been really good. I think staying focused and giving yourself an opportunity is usually a good recipe in those fifth sets. There is not a lot of margin for error. I think we have come out and played really well. And four of them have been at home. We have been lucky to be at home to have our crowd behind us as opposed to trying to grind one out on the road."
 
Earlier on Wednesday, the initial NCAA South Central Region rankings were released. The Lions are ranked seventh in the highly competitive region. Case isn't surprised at where his team is. He knows they could have improved those rankings if they had played better earlier in the season. Knowing there is nothing they can do about it now, he says his team needs to focus on the final four matches of the conference season and take care of the future, not dwell on the past or hang their hats on the present.
 
"I figured that is where we were going to be," Case said of the rankings. "We didn't play as well as we probably needed to before conference started. We left some opportunities on the floor against some good teams. Had we picked up a couple of those wins, I think we could have climbed maybe as high as four. But we didn't and we are fighting our way back through that.
 
"I think we are in a good spot in terms of knowing where we stand. But we also know that we are not as high as we want to be. If we want to make the NCAA Tournament, we can't hang around at that seventh or eighth spot. That's what we did last year. We were hoping we could make it at the end of the year rather than going out and continuing to try and climb. It is good to get that ranking and validate where we are. But at the end of the day, we still have four conference matches that we have to go out and win. Those regional rankings don't mean anything if we just cash in the rest of the season and don't put forth the effort that we need to have in order to be a championship-level volleyball team."
 
The Lions now face maybe the most difficult road trip in all of Division II volleyball. They will travel to face Western New Mexico on Friday then turn around and travel all the way back across New Mexico to Portales to face Eastern New Mexico. Now having experience with the trip after admitting WNMU into the Lone Star Conference last season, Case knows at the end of the day, it will come down to what happens on the court, not how long it took to get to the said court.
 
"Physically it is just hard," Case said of the trip. "It is hard to be on a bus that much and ride between the two schools. And what makes it even more difficult is they are both really good volleyball teams. They aren't just good at home because it is a tough road trip. We know that we are already going in to play really good volleyball teams. On top of that, we are going to have some difficult travel.
 
"Hopefully we made some adjustments from last year and now after the trip last year, we know how it should be done now and what we've got to do in order to be successful. Hopefully this time around we will be able to be a little bit more competitive over in those gyms than we were last year. At the end of the day, we have to get to the gym by a certain time to start that match and we have got to play ball. We have to try and play the best volleyball we can, regardless what happened on the way to that match."