Complete Release and Season Statistics in PDF Format
Nov. 19, 2007
TOURNEY TIME
*** The San Diego State Aztecs team will travel to Las Vegas, Nev., for the ninth annual Mountain West Conference Volleyball Championship tournament hosted by UNLV beginning Wednesday, Nov. 21.
*** All nine MWC teams will participate in the event.
*** San Diego State will be the tourney's number-eight seed by virtue of finishing eighth in the final league standings. As such, it will face ninth-seeded Air Force on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. (PST) at UNLV's Cox Pavilion.
*** Should they defeat the Falcons, the Aztecs would advance into the main draw of the tournament and play top-seeded Colorado State on Thursday, Nov. 22, at 7:00 p.m.
TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
*** The MWC Tournament gets under with the SDSU-Air Force match as the lone contest on Wednesday. The complete tourney schedule is as follows (all times PST):
November 21 (Wednesday) M1 #8 San Diego State vs. #9 Air Force....3:30 p.m. November 22 (Thursday) M2 #3 Brigham Young vs. #6 New Mexico....11:00 a.m. M3* #2 UNLV vs. #7 Wyoming................1:30 p.m.* M4 #4 TCU vs. #5 Utah.....................4:00 p.m. M5 #1 Colorado State vs. Winner M1........6:30 p.m.* November 23 (Friday) M6 Winner M2 vs. Winner M3................3:30 p.m. M7 Winner M4 vs. Winner M5................6:00 p.m. November 24 (Saturday) M8 Winner M6 vs. Winner M7................7:00 p.m. * Times approximate pending length of previous matchTOURNAMENT TELEVISION
*** SDSU's opening of the MWC tournament against Air Force will not be televised.
*** However, the remaining seven matches will be televised. The quarterfinals and semifinals will be broadcast on The Mtn.
*** Five of those six matches will be broadcast live. The lone exception is the second semifinal on Friday, which will be shown on a tape-delayed basis at 7:00 p.m. (PST).
*** The title match will be carried live by CSTV on Saturday.
TOURNAMENTS PAST
*** The Mountain West Conference has seen three different teams capture the title in the first eight years of its postseason tournament.
*** Only Colorado State (4), Utah (3) and Brigham Young (1) have won the MWC Tournament.
*** The league's regular-season champion (i.e. number-one seed) has won the tournament only once. That occurred when Colorado State won the 2003 tourney in San Diego. The second seed has won it four times while the third seed has been victorious on three occasions.
*** San Diego State has advanced to the semifinals twice: in 2003 and last season (2006). It has never made it to the title match.
TOURNAMENT RECORD
*** The Aztecs overall record at the MWC Volleyball championship is 4-8.
*** SDSU lost in the first round in 1999 (Utah), 2001 (UNLV), 2004 (Brigham Young) and 2005 (UNLV).
*** In 2000, SDSU defeated New Mexico before falling to Colorado State in the semis.
*** 2002 saw a first-round win over New Mexico followed by a loss to Utah in the semifinals.
*** In 2003, the Aztecs bested UNLV before losing to Colorado State.
*** Last year, the Aztecs defeated BYU, then lost to Colorado State.
SERIES RECORD VS. AIR FORCE
*** San Diego State holds a 21-1 mark in its previous 22 meetings with Air Force. The teams first met in 1996 while both were members of the Western Athletic Conference. Prior to that season, the Falcons had competed in the Colorado Athletic Conference with 1996 being their first year as a member of Division I. Air Force's lone win over SDSU came in Colorado Springs in 1999.
*** San Diego State has won the last 17 meetings between the teams including a 3-0 victory at home and a 3-1 win in Colorado Springs this season. The Aztecs are 12-0 at home vs. the Falcons and 9-1 away.
*** This will mark the first meeting between the schools in the conference tournament.
WARNER GETS NUMBER 200
*** San Diego State head coach Mark Warner recorded his 200th career win with the Aztecs' victory over Air Force on Oct. 4.
*** Warner is in his 13th season at the helm of the Aztec women's program. His career record over that span stands at 201-194 (.509).
*** Over the past 12 years, Warner has led his teams to a pair of NCAA Tournament berths and a Western Athletic Conference championship. His tutelage has produced 15 all-conference players and he was named the Mountain West Conference co-coach of the year in 2002.
TALE OF TWO SEASONS
*** San Diego State has struggled over the second half of the 2007 season, a fact which can be partially attributed to the loss of Stephanie Darnall, who broke her leg in the match at TCU on Oct. 13.
*** Over the first portion of the campaign, the Aztecs compiled a mark of 10-4 overall and 2-1 in conference play. Included in that record was a win over UNLV, one of only five losses for the Rebel's this season, plus a victory over Utah and a five-game loss to BYU.
*** Since then, SDSU's record is 2-11 with both wins coming against Air Force.
*** SDSU was not shut out in a match over its first 14 outings, but has picked up six 3-0 defeats since.
*** San Diego State's 10-4 mark at the mid-point of its 2007 campaign was its best start to a season since 2001 when it began with the same record.
ON THE BLOCK
*** San Diego State has been out-blocked in a match in only six of its 27 contests this season.
*** In all matches, SDSU is averaging 3.00 blocks per game, third-best in the MWC.
*** This week, San Diego State ranks 26th in the nation in blocking.
*** Individually, SDSU has two players in the top 10 in the MWC overall stats in blocking. Lauren Salisbury is fifth at 1.34 bpg while Lindsey Mahan is eighth at 1.17 bpg.
*** In league matches, Salisbury finished sixth at 1.27 per game.
WORKING LONG HOURS
*** Seven of San Diego State's 20 matches this season have gone five games. The Aztecs are 4-3 in those contests.
*** Last season, SDSU went 2-3 in five-game matches.
*** Since going to rally scoring in 2001, the highest number of five-game matches in a season for the Aztecs had been five (2002, 2003, 2006).
*** The team's best season record in those matches was 2-3 in both 2002 and 2006.
*** The last time SDSU had seven five-game contests in a season was in 1996, going 4-3 in those outings.
*** The Aztecs had eight five-game matches during the 1992 campaign.
MOVING UP THE CHARTS
*** Senior setter Kristen Castillo has moved into fifth place on the career assist list with 2,631. She is 142 assists away from the number-four spot occupied by Liane Sato (1985-86) with 2,773 assists.
*** With 2,058 career assists, junior Leah Lathrop has moved up to the number-seven spot. She needs 181 assists to move up one spot by catching Melissa Stokes (1986-88) who recorded 2,239 assists as an Aztec.
RECORD SETTER
*** Libero Aime Cordeiro, who set an SDSU and Mountain West Conference record with 46 digs against Northern Illinois on Sept. 8, followed that up with a 44-dig outing in the team's next match against Cal State Fullerton on Sept. 11.
*** Despite falling two digs shy of tying her own record, the 44 digs established a new MWC mark for digs in a five-game match.
*** The previous MWC mark was 42 set by BYU's Annie Pinegar is a five-game match vs. UC Santa Barbara at the end of last season.
*** Cordeiro's previous best was 39 digs in a four-game match vs. College of Charleston (Aug. 30, 2006).
*** Her 35 digs at UNLV (Oct. 7, 2005) is the MWC record for a conference match as well.
AZTEC NOTES
*** Freshman Lauren Salisbury and senior Lindsey Mahan are the only two Aztecs to have started every match this season.
Redshirt freshman Hannah Evans has started 26 of 27. Mahan, Salisbury and Kristen Castillo have played in every game in 2007. *** Lauren Salisbury is the only Aztec to have at least one block in every match this season. Hannah Evans had her streak of 23 straight matches with a block ended in the contest vs. TCU (Nov. 9). Sydney De Turks streak of 22 straight matches with a block ended vs. Colorado State on Nov. 5. Senior Lindsey Mahan ended a streak of 14 matches in a row with a block when she was shut out at Colorado State on Sept. 27, the only time she has been shut out in 2007.
*** Seniors Lindsey Mahan and Kristen Castillo are SDSU's 2007 team captains.
*** The Aztec have a pair of foreign nationals on their 2007 roster: Caitlin McMillan from Coquitlam, B.C. Canada, and Iva Gosnjak from Belgrade Serbia.
*** Melanie Greene, who was a senior on the 2006 Aztec squad, is serving as a volunteer assistant coach this season.