Oct. 2, 2007

NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Three years. 36 months. 1,095 days.

Count it however you want, three years is a long time to be perfect; but that is just what the Stephen F. Austin volleyball team has been for that long.

Three years. 55 wins. Zero losses.

That is how long SFA has gone without losing a Southland Conference regular season match.

When you count it that way you come up just three wins shy of the all-time Southland Conference record win streak of 58 matches that UT-Arlington had snapped by Texas State in 1991; however, it might not be much longer and SFA will hold that record all to itself.

It was October 1, 2004, when SFA fell in a five-game match at Texas Hall to UT-Arlington to fall to 1-3 in Southland Conference play; but, that loss to the Lady Mavs proved to be a prophecy of sorts as a dying hurricane coupled with a bizarre lights malfunction forced the match to stretch nearly three hours.

"It was a weird night," head coach Debbie Humphreys said. "I guess a cheerleader hit a switch and the lights went out, and then whatever was left of Hurricane Ivan came down right on top of us and rain started seeping through the roof."

Ironically the lights came on in more ways than one for the Ladyjacks that evening, as SFA would catch lightning in a bottle, so to speak, to win its next 18 matches and finish in a first-place tie for the regular season title.

Nobody has turned those lights off yet.

Don't believe it? Just look at the three Southland Conference Players of the Year, 12 all-conference selections and three conference titles in that time span. The lights from that night still reflect off of each of those trophies.

The '04 season provided the spark for what would become a Southland Conference dynasty as the Ladyjacks have won 91 of the 114 overall matches they have played since then.

That year's freshman class - JJ Jones, Traci Rohde and Jami Hill - though still in its infancy at that time, has matured to keep the ship on course through even more hurricanes - even ones other than Ivan.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused major changes in scheduling and location for all sports throughout the Southland Conference in 2005. The Ladyjacks' home of Johnson Coliseum was used for shelter for fleeing victims from Southeast Texas, Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast, forcing the Ladyjacks to move some of their matches to their old home of Shelton Gym.

Even through that slew of turmoil, the streak continued. The '05 season would see SFA make a perfect run through conference play with a 19-0 record, only to fall in the Southland Conference Tournament semifinals to Texas State.

"The 2005 season was hard to swallow," Humphreys said. "We had a great team, but just ran into a team that we had beaten twice before, but played the best match they had played all year."

Well if it was a hurricane that turned the lights on in 2004, it was the way the 2005 season ended that illuminated them even more in 2006.

After starting off the season a mediocre 5-3, the Ladyjacks flipped the overdrive switch again. SFA would reel off a school-record 26 wins in a row, going a perfect 16-0 in conference play and only losing a single game in three matches at the Southland Conference Tournament in San Antonio.

"You know, I'm not exactly sure where things really took off in 2006, but at some point that season finally stopped being an extension of the year before and just became its own year," Humphreys said.

Then, with their season and conference winning streaks in tact, the Ladyjacks would venture into uncharted waters - the NCAA Tournament. Ironically enough they were matched up with another mythical weather phenomenon - the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Five grueling games would see SFA come out victorious and bring its ship to port at a never-before-seen destination - the NCAA second round; however, that season's trek would end there at the hands of the No. 7 Texas Longhorns.

As for 2007, so far so good. The Ladyjacks said farewell to All-America libero Stephanie Figgers and former Southland Conference Player of the Year Laura Cramer after `06, but have cut-and-pasted to piece together a 14-5 season so far and a 4-0 beginning to conference play. Briana Taylor and Lauren Railey, along with Jones and Hill, have all garnered Southland Conference Player of the Week honors at some point this season.

But this weekend provides another set of rough waters, as the Ladyjacks have to handle their toughest road trip of the season - at UT-Arlington and at Texas State. It seems only fitting that to be the best they have to go through their toughest competition from the past three years.

After all, it was Texas State that knocked SFA out of the conference tournament in '04 and '05, and it was UT-Arlington that used to be the dynasty of the Southland Conference before the SFA era.

Even though Humphreys says that her team has not talked about it or put much emphasis on the streak, she knows that it would still be a nice banner to fly.

"Our goal is to go 16-0 in the Southland Conference because that guarantees us a chance to win the conference tournament," Humphreys said. "I cannot say that we keep a running count of those things [the streak], but I think the whole team gets a smile whenever we read about it."

Hopefully next week there will be even more smiles when they read the papers.

-SFA-