By Bill Vilona
www.GoArgos.com Senior Writer


PENSACOLA, Fla. - Once another trophy was secured by the University of West Florida volleyball team, the school pep band immediately broke into DJ Khaled's popular rap song, "All I Do Is Win."

This year, with this team, it's been a season-theme song more fitting than ever.

The No. 7-ranked Argos (33-1) claimed their 10th Gulf South Conference volleyball crown Sunday at the UWF Field House and set a school-record for most wins, after their four-set triumph against Montevallo University in the GSC Tournament title game. The Argos won 25-18, 22-25, 25-19 and 25-17, after reaching the tournament championship game for a sixth consecutive season.

"I think we have done a really good job of not getting wrapped up in numbers, not getting wrapped up in streaks and that kind of stuff," said UWF coach Melissa Wolter, who has built a volleyball dynasty at UWF.  "They are so driven, they take things one day at a time.

"They know what we are doing is big, but I love the fact they are always looking for the next big thing."

Well, that may soon happen.

The NCAA will announce the field of teams Monday for the Division II tournament in a 6:30 p.m. selection show on www.NCAA.com. It is expected the Argos will be named a region host for the first time in school history.  The eight-team regionals begin Dec. 2 at campus sites.  UWF has twice hosted the national championship tournament as a non-participant, but never had the South Regional in their home gym.

"That would be awesome," said outside hitter Madi Cooler, who led UWF on Sunday with seven blocks and was second on the team with 14 kills. "That was our goal we set at the beginning of the year in preseason.... hosting regionals.

"That is another checkmark on our goal-list."

This team, of course, has checked off a lot of feats in a special season. The Argos only loss was back on Sept. 10 against the University of Indianapolis in a tournament at U-Indy. Since then, UWF has won 28 consecutive games and 19 of those wins have been 3-0 sweeps.

"We think about what our culture should be and what the legacy (previous) teams left behind, and we are just looking to carry that and make it stronger," said junior outside hitter Taylor Vaneekeren, named Sunday as the GSC Tournament Most Outstanding Player.  "Our whole team is involved and everybody is in it to win it and I think that's a huge difference."

Vaneekeren produced a whopping team-high 51 assists along with two service aces.

"We are super blessed that we won this conference," she said. "It is a really tough conference this year. We have more goals to accomplish."

The Argos were extended to five sets by Montevallo on Nov. 2 in the teams' second regular-season meeting. It was the only time against GSC foes the Argos had to win a fifth-set tiebreaker. But that memory reinforced the Falcons, seeded No. 6 in the tournament field, would be no pushover.

And they weren't. The first three sets on Sunday were back-and-forth scoring. UWF led only 20-17 in the first game before going on a 5-1 run to win. Montevallo, located outside of Birmingham and with a sizable fan support at the UWF Field House, pulled ahead from a 20-20 deadlock to win the second game.

In the pivotal third game, Veresia Yon made several big plays, after the score was tied at 18 to push the game in UWF's favor.

"Definitely throughout the whole game, we had no doubt," Cooler said. "We practice those situations and we had no doubt that was going to matter at the end of the day."

The Argos then finished it off with a strong performance in the fourth game. Veresia Yon led UWF with 23 kills.

"They (Falcons) run a very fast offense and it had us out of sorts all afternoon," Wolter said.  "Montevallo, boy, hats off to them. They brought it and we knew they would. I have mad for respect for them. That was great championship volleyball."

This is the fifth time in Wolter's 18 seasons at UWF where her teams have won 30 or more games. They set the prior school record for wins with a 32-7 mark in 2007. This year's team has just two seniors, Ashton Marshall and Caroline Terrell, along with graduate transfer Tyler Fezzey from Riverside, Calif., who has made such an impact.

Marshall, the defensive specialist, came up big again Sunday with a team-high 14 digs.
 
"We are not driven by one player," Wolter said. "We have players who are on our bench playing against us in practice that would start in a lot of other programs. The competition we have in our gym every day is awesome. Our bench is a blast.

"Every (starting) player on our team has won conference player of the week. I think they are finding ways to be selfless and let it be somebody's day no matter who it is."

That kind of unity was evident in the celebration after the final point was secured. The players made two fives with their hands to symbolize the 10 GSC titles in team history.

"Their desire to be great for our school, for our team, for each other, it was bigger than the moment," Wolter said. "Once they relaxed, they settled in, you could tell they were having fun. There is a lot of chemistry out there."