MIAMI, Fla. -  The FIU women's volleyball team has qualified for the 2022 Conference USA Volleyball Championships as the No. 7 seed and will play No. 2 seed, Rice University, in the quarterfinals on Friday, Nov.18 in Bowling Green, Ky., beginning at 6 p.m. ET.

Friday, Nov. 18 vs RICE (23-3, 13-1 C-USA)

• Time/Site: 6 p.m. ET at E.A. Diddle Arena
• Live Stats
• Streaming Video: ESPN+

The Panthers (8-20, 5-9 C-USA) qualified for the C-USA tournament following a win over rival Florida Atlantic in the regular-season finale.
 
FIU had three players post double-digit kills in the postseason-clinching win over the Owls led by middle blocker Athina Dimitiradis with 14. Dimitriadis also paced the Panthers in the regular season with 266 kills and averaged a team-best 2.53 kills per set.
 
Libero, Katie Turner, capped off her regular season by recording 18 digs against FAU to lead the Panthers in that category for the 26^th time this season. She was one dig shy of 500 as she finished the 2022 regular season with 499 to lead the conference. She is also second in C-USA averaging 4.75 digs per set.
 
Sarah Nading finished the regular season as one of the top setters in Conference USA. She led FIU with 758 assists which was the sixth-best mark in the conference and was also sixth in C-USA averaging 8.92 assists per set.
 
SCOUTING RICE
Rice was selected to finish in second place in the 2022 C-USA preseason rankings and finished in that same spot to close out the regular season.
 
The Owls enter Friday night's match winning their regular season finale 3-0 against MTSU. Their only loss in conference play was against Western Kentucky, the host of the C-USA championships and No. 1 overall seed.
 
Rice had three players named to the 2022 C-USA Pre-season team: middle blocker Anota Adekunle, outside hitter Ellie Bichelmeyer and setter Carly Graham.
 
Adekunle leads Rice with 295 kills to go along with a .428 hitting percentage which is first in the conference. She is also eighth in the conference averaging 3.11 kills per set.
 
Bichelmeyer is fourth on the Owls with 233 kills which shows the depth Rice has after finishing the season with four players recording more than 200 kills.
 
Fifth year player, Carly Graham, leads Rice with 1003 assists and is second in the whole conference in that statistic. She is also second in the conference averaging 10.23 assists per set and one of only two players in C-USA with over 1000 assists.
 
Defensively, Rice is anchored by libero, Nia McCardell. She has played in every single set this season and leads the Owls with 474 digs. She has the slight edge over Katie Turner to lead the conference averaging 4.84 digs per set.  

Series History: Rice leads 8-1

SOCIAL MEDIA
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