Rice volleyball headed to NCAA tourney

The Rice volleyball team will make its fifth NCAA Tournament appearance on Thursday when the Owls take on Oklahoma at College Station.

Texas A&M — coach Rice Genny Volpe’s alma mater — will play St. John’s in the same regional. The winners advance to play each other on Friday.

Rice will be joined by five other in-state teams, including the Aggies.

Baylor enters the competition as the top team in the country and the tournament’s No. 1 seed. The Bears will play Sacred Heart in the first round in Waco. The winner will face the victor between Stephen F. Austin St. and Southern California.

No. 2 seed Texas will play Albany in Austin. A win would punch the Longhorns’ ticket to the second round, where they’d face the winner of the Texas State-Cal-Santa Barbara pairing.

“There’s a lot of really good volleyball in Texas,” Volpe said. “I think it just shows the strength of A&M, Rice, Baylor, Texas.”