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On April 2, the University of Jamestown won the GPAC Championship match to book their spot in the NAIA National Tournament. The Jimmies now know who they are in Pool A and will be facing in pool play as they will be facing Aquinas College and Grand View University.
The Jimmies (19-5) start their tournament run at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 13, when they face the Saints (21-7). The Jimmies second game of the tournament is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 14, when they face the Vikings. The matchup vs. the Saints will be the first time in program history that the two will play. The Jimmies and the Vikings have played five times all time with the Vikings winning all five matches.
Jimmies head coach Travers Cox said that he is excited to face off against the Vikings and test his team against the No. 1 team in the country.
“I don’t know much about Aquinas, so I’ll get to watch some video,” Cox said. “We’ll get some video on them and scout them, as for being in the pool with Grand View, couldn’t ask for a better team to have in our pool. We love battling the best and right now Grand View is the best, so we get the first shot at them so to speak, so we can’t wait.”
The No. 7 Jimmies and the No. 1 Vikings (23-2) have faced off two previous times this season, with the Vikings winning both matchups, in five sets on Feb. 18, and in four sets on March 4.
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“We’ll go back, we’ll watch video, we’ll try to clean up a few things that we did playing against Grand View in the past, try to get better in some areas that we can get better at,” Cox said. “It’s gonna be exciting, that’s all I’ll say, it’s going to be exciting. They are already pumped, they were pretty excited at the selection show, who they got matched up with, because like I said, we want the best. Don’t get me wrong, there are 12 teams that are there, and they are all great, but Grand View is your previous champion, Grand View is ranked one, that’s who we want.”
In the first two matchups against the Vikings, the Jimmies were short handed, only having one substitute, Braden Neumann, in each match. The Jimmies’ Samuel Jackman believes that the team being short handed in the previous two matchups, gives them an advantage heading into the match vs. the top seeded Vikings.
“I think it’s good because they haven’t been able to see anything of what we have and so playing them they are going to see a completely different version of us that they haven’t been able to test yet,” Jackman said. “I like that too because there is no video on that, there is not a single game they can watch and say ‘oh this is their starting group’. They have no idea, so I like that we can hit them with something new.”
