Nashville, Tenn. – The NCAA released the volleyball championship bracket Sunday, with the Atlantic Sun Champion Belmont Bruins (24-6, 8-1 A-Sun) slated to take on the nation’s eleventh-seeded Ohio State Buckeyes (23-7) in Louisville, Ky. The match will be played on Friday at 4:00pm Central Time at the Kentucky International Convention Center.

The winner of the match will face either host Louisville (25-6) or Sun Belt Champion Middle Tennessee State (26-7) on December 2 at 4:00pm Central Time. It is the team’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament, and the Bruins are the first women’s team at Belmont to compete in an NCAA Tournament.

Head Coach Deane Webb was not surprised by the pairing with the Buckeyes, as he noted “I expected that it would be a top ten or fifteen team. Ohio State has a great program with a tradition of excellence. We are looking forward to the opportunity to play against one of the best teams in the Big 10 and the nation.”

Belmont earned the automatic bid as the second seed in last weekend’s Atlantic Sun Championship. The team swept both opponents in the tournament, blanking Lipscomb in the semi-final and Jacksonville in the final. A-Sun Player of the Year Colleen Nilson earned Tournament MVP honors, and was joined on the all-tournament team by senior Katie Tobiasz, junior Jaye Schuler, and sophomore Cat Mundy.

As for playing in nearby Louisville, “Kentucky is a great location for us. Because several of our players are from the Midwest, we should have a good number of families in attendance, which is always good,” noted Webb at the team’s private viewing party at The Sports Grille in downtown Nashville.

The winner of the sub-regional will advance to the Seattle Regional on December 8-9. The Bruins are one of five schools making their first appearance in the tournament, which has seen ten different winners in its 26-year history.