Nov. 27, 2011
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By Eric DeSalvo
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - Despite having its best season since 2003 with 20 wins and a Conference USA-best 12 victories, the UCF volleyball team will be unable to have a chance to extend the 2011 season as it was not one of the 64 teams chosen to compete in the NCAA Tournament Sunday evening.
Head coach Todd Dagenais is proud of how his team gave itself a chance at its first postseason berth since 2003, but is disappointed in Sunday night's outcome.
"This year's team worked so hard to put itself in the position for today and I'm so sorry for them," Dagenais said. "I want them to be proud of the year that they had and I hope that the general public understands what kind of odds that this team and program has overcome just to get to the point where they were today.
"It appears as if they NCAA selection committee went solely by RPI as evidenced by the Pac-12 champion (Southern California) only given the No. 7 seed," Dagenais added. "When you start seeing those kinds of results, it really forces you to look at the fact that so much of the selection process is out of your hands. It is very disappointing that Conference USA only got one team in (Tulsa), but until the coaches as a united front get together and implement a very firm scheduling philosophy and stick to it, history could repeat itself."
The 2011 season was a program best in many ways as UCF won a school record 12 matches in league play, including wins for the first time over No. 1 USC, Rice and Houston and its first-ever win at SMU in the second-to-last match of the season. It was also a record-setting season in the awards department as Angelica Crump (Atlanta, Ga.), DeLaina Sarden (Lawrenceville, Ga.), Evija Vilde (Riga, Latvia) and Rachel Vukson (Oakville, Ontario) all earned All-C-USA recognition.
The Knights hope to carry over this season's success as they only lose one senior (Vukson) and will return the rest of highly-talented squad in 2012.