![\"Baylor](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/vb-ncaa-nov17.jpg\")
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Sunday night, the Baylor volleyball team bided time waiting for the NCAA tournament bracket’s release by gathering at head coach Ryan McGuyre’s house for a 45-minute worship time around a campfire<\/a>.<\/p>\n When the bracket was finally released, the Bears weren’t disappointed. In just McGuyre’s third season leading the program, Baylor accomplished a host of program firsts:\u00a0back-to-back postseason selections,\u00a0a national seed in the NCAA tournament, and the chance to host games in the tournament’s first and second rounds.<\/p>\n In compiling the team’s best regular season in almost 20 years, this year’s team went 23-6 and earned\u00a0the No. 12 overall seed in this year’s NCAA Volleyball Championship<\/a>. Baylor will host first- and second-round games in the Ferrell Center this weekend, beginning with Miami of Ohio on Friday.<\/p>\n After starting the season 5-3, the Bears have won 18 of their last 21 matches, including a 13-3 Big 12 record that earned Baylor a second-place league finish —\u00a0the best conference finish in program history. McGuyre was named Big 12 Coach of the Year<\/a> — another program first — and outside hitter Yossiana Pressley was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year<\/a>.\u00a0(The Bears also led the league with 10 Academic All-Big 12 honorees<\/a>.)<\/p>\n This year’s squad is led by Pressley (the Big 12’s leader in kills),\u00a0senior outside hitter Katie Staiger (who ranks second all-time at Baylor in career kills), and senior libero Jana Brusek (who ranks second at Baylor in career digs). Staiger is also a four-time first-team Academic All-Big 12 selection and\u00a0one of 10 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award<\/a>, given each year to a senior who stands out when it comes to “community, classroom, character and competition.” (Click here to vote for Staiger<\/a>; fans can vote daily through Dec. 4.)<\/p>\n Baylor will open the 2017 NCAA tournament Friday at 7 p.m. against Miami (OH), the Mid-American Conference regular season and tournament champion. The winner of that game will face the winner of Colorado and James Madison on Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are available via BaylorBears.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Baylor volleyball!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sunday night, the Baylor volleyball team bided time waiting for the NCAA tournament bracket’s release by gathering at head coach Ryan McGuyre’s house for a 45-minute worship time around a campfire. When the bracket was finally released, the Bears weren’t disappointed. In just McGuyre’s third season leading the program, Baylor accomplished a host of program […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athletics","category-honors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}