Your weekly news from around the MEAC!
Sydne Vigille | The FAMUAN
With the volleyball season wrapping up, this weekend is set to be a thriller for all volleyball fans across the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. The 2018 MEAC Volleyball Championships will be held this weekend with Howard and Florida A&M gaining the top seed of the northern and southern divisions respectively.
The tournament will also feature: North No 2. Maryland Eastern Shore, South No. 3 North Carolina A&T, North No. 1 Morgan State, South No. 4 North Carolina Central, South No. 2 Bethune-Cookman as well as North No. 3 Coppin State.
Howard became the top seed of the Northern Division, however, preseason favorites Maryland Eastern Shore have garnered the attention to really make some noise in the tournament. Due to their strong conference play throughout the season as they recorded a 7-3 record in MEAC play.
NCAT and B-CU still show promise as southern division leader FAMU lost to their rival B-CU earlier in the season. However, the Rattlers led by first year head coach Gokhan Yilmaz have won 10 of their last 12 games heading into the tournament and show no signs of slowing down their dominant play.
The first match of the tournament will be between North No. 2 Maryland Eastern Shore against South No. 3 NCAT this Friday at 11 a.m…
Continuing with women’s sports, this past week the MEAC tipped off the women’s basketball season with some highly impressive and disappointing performances across the conference.
Considering the amount of non-conference games that took place this past week, women’s basketball featured several blowout losses in the conference.
But the Savannah State Lady Tigers made up for it as they put on a dazzling performance against Wesleyan College that was history in the making. The tigers put up 155 points against Wesleyan through dominant performances from Heniaya Moton who led all scorers with a career-high 34 points. As well as sophomore Jacquece Alston who recorded an efficient 13-point, 12 assist and 12 steal triple-double. Luckily for Wesleyan time ran out because she also recorded seven rebounds which put her extremely close to recording a quadruple double.
Right now, BCU and SSU are tied for the No. 1 seed for Women’s Basketball but it is still very early in the season and too early to determine who will come out on top.
On the Men’s side they are similar as the season kicked off with several non-conference games, but the men had a few league games sprinkled in there to give us an early indicator of some teams to look out for this season.
One including conference leading FAMU and Tuskegee. The Rattlers were able to beat TU 62-55 through an impressive shooting display from Justin Ravenal who scored 21 points and shot five of six from three.
FAMU currently leads the division, but Howard is also on a two-game win streak after their dominant 20-point 99-71 victory over Central Penn to start the season.
This past weekend on the gridiron were a few upsets, one including current division leader FAMU. The Rattlers loss again this week in embarrassing fashion as SCSU defeated FAMU 44-21. Also, Norfolk State defeated the Caylin Newton led Howard Bison who for the past few weeks seemed like a team trying to emerge themselves as the true MEAC champions. NSU’s Juwan Carter displayed his touch as he threw for three touchdowns to lead the Spartans to a 29-17 victory.
FAMU still leads the MEAC and they also still determine their own fate. If FAMU can defeat BCU this weekend at the Florida Blue Florida Classic they will solidify themselves as the MEAC Champions and punch themselves a ticket to Atlanta to compete for the Air Force Reserve Celebration Bowl.