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The road to Ames, IA runs through Highland this week for the Wienkes family and fans of 6-0 sophomore outside hitter Kendall Wienkes.
Kendall joins the Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW) women's volleyball team in taking on the Iowa State Cyclones in the opening round of the NCAA Volleyball Tourna-ment. The Mastodons (25-6) will travel to Ames, Iowa to face Iowa State (20-7) on Thursday, Nov. 29 at 8:30 p.m.
Kendall has played in 116 sets for the Mastodons this season. She is fifth on the team in kills with 254, second in ace serves with 24 and third in digs with 323. She has also recorded 57 blocks, fourth best on the team.
Kendall helped Highland to the WIAA Division 4 state championship her senior season and was honored as a first team all-state selection. She was heavily recruited before settling on IPFW.
The NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Committee announced the 64-team field last weekend for the 2012 NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship. Thirty-one conferences were awarded automatic qualification, and the remaining 33 slots were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket.
The top 16 teams were seeded nationally and placed within four regions. The teams tabbed as the top four seeds were No. 1 Pennsylvania State University; No. 2 Stanford University; No. 3 University of Texas at Austin; and No. 4 University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Per the established bracketing principles the top 16 seeds were provided the opportunity to host. In addition, first and second-round conference matchups were avoided and team pairings were determined by geographical proximity.
The Big Ten Conference and Pacific-12 Conference led all conferences with seven teams each. The West Coast Conference was next with six teams in the tournament. Two teams, Penn State and Stanford have earned bids to all 32 championships. Two teams are making their initial appearances in the tournament: University of Central Arkansas and East Tennessee State University.
In the 31-year history of the championship, 10 schools have been crowned champion, eight of which are in this year's bracket, including defending champion, University of California, Los Angeles.
Past winners making the field are Stanford (1992, 94, 96, 97, 2001, 04), University of Hawaii, Manoa (1982, 83, 87), UCLA (1984, 90, 91, 2011), Nebraska (1995, 2000, and 06), University of Southern California (1981, 2002, 03), Penn State (1999, 2007, 08, 09 and 10), Texas (1988) and University of Washington (2005).
First and second-round matches will be played at 16 campus sites. The Berkeley, California Region breaks down like this:
BERKELEY, CA.
REGIONAL
November 30-December 1 at Los Angeles, California
No. 7 UCLA vs. LIU Brooklyn
Michigan St. vs. San Diego
November 29-30 at Louisville, Kentucky
Tennessee vs. Michigan
Belmont vs. No. 10 Louisville
November 29-30 at Ames, Iowa
No. 15 Iowa St. vs. IPFW
California vs. North Carolina
November 30-December 1 at Stanford, California
Western Ky. vs. Loyola Marymount
Jackson St. vs. No. 2 Stanford
Teams winning both matches will move on to regional play December 7 and 8. The pre-determined regional sites are Berkeley, California; West Lafayette, Indiana; Omaha, Nebraska; and Austin, Texas. All regional semifinal games will be shown on ESPN3. Regional final games will air on ESPNU.
The regional winners will advance to the semifinals and final hosted by Louisville and the Louisville Sports Commission at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky, on December 13 and 15. Both national semifinal games as well as the championship game will be broadcast by ESPN2. All regional and championship site game times can be found on the attached championship bracket or online at www.ncaa.com/wvb.