KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Azusa Pacific University volleyball team is seeded fifth, the top seed of its 4-team pool in the 30th Annual NAIA Volleyball National Championship, held Dec. 1-5 at the Tyson Events Center/Gateway Arena in Sioux City, Iowa.

The Cougars are joined in Pool E by eighth-seeded College of Idaho, and Azusa Pacific’s round-robin pool play schedule features a pair of rematches with unseeded teams Doane (Neb.) College and Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) College, both of which knocked off the Cougars early in the year in non-conference action.

“We’re treating it as a new tournament for us,” Cougar head coach Chris Keife said. “No matter who we play, we’re going to treat it like a new match. The teams we played already took place very early in the season. I have no doubt that not only are we a different team (from 3 months ago), but so are they, and there’s been a lot of growth for teams throughout the nation.”

Azusa Pacific opens pool play on Tuesday, Dec. 1, at 5:45 p.m. local time, taking on Lewis-Clark State, which handed the Cougars a 4-set loss Sept. 4 at the Asics/Crowne Plaza Labor Day Tournament hosted by Concordia. Lewis-Clark State was ranked No. 21 in the final NAIA Top 25 Coaches Poll and won the Frontier Conference’s automatic bid into the tournament. The Warriors bring a 24-7 record to the final site following a thrilling 5-set win over Southern Oregon Saturday in an Opening Round match.

The Cougars’ second opponent is Doane, a 3-set winner when the teams squared off Aug. 28 at the Northwestern (Iowa) Red Raider Classic in Orange City, Iowa. Doane earned a Great Plains Athletic Conference automatic bid with its runner-up finish in the GPAC tournament, and the Tigers knocked off Black Hills State (S.D.) in 4 sets in the Opening Round to advance to the final site. Doane finished the season ranked No. 18 in the NAIA and brings a 29-7 season mark into pool play. The teams meet on Wednesday, Dec. 2, at 8 p.m. local time.

Pool play wraps up for Azusa Pacific on Thursday, Dec. 3, with a 5:45 p.m. clash with eighth-seeded College of Idaho, which, like the Cougars, earned an Opening Round bye to secure its spot at the final site. The Coyotes are 24-2 on the year and claimed the Cascade Collegiate Conference bid by winning the Cascade’s conference tournament championship.

Azusa Pacific is 1 of 7 teams from the Golden State Athletic Conference that has advanced to the final site in Sioux City, and the GSAC is represented in 5 of the 6 groups of pool play. The top 2 teams of each pool advance to the 12-team single-elimination bracket which begins Friday, Dec. 4.

“We have our work cut out for us,” Keife said. “As we approach the tournament, we’ll use these last few practices to continue to try to improve and get better as a team.”

JumpTV Inc. is the exclusive provider of live video and audio-streaming at the NAIA National Championship. JumpTV will stream the 2009 NAIA Men's and Women's Soccer and Volleyball National Championships. All of the action from Sioux City on Dec. 4 and 5 will be video-streamed live on JumpTV, a total of 11 matches. These events can be viewed by going to watchnaia.com.

Follow Cougar Athletics online with Twitter updates, at twitter.com/APUCougars. Cougar Athletics is also available on all web-enabled devices through Azusa Pacific’s mobile website: www.apu.edu/m.