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WHEELING, W. Va. – The Clarion volleyball team (21-16, 15-7 PSAC) will head to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh consecutive season on Thursday when they take on PSAC foe and fourth-seeded Edinboro (31-6, 18-4 PSAC West) in the NCAA Division II Atlantic Regional hosted by Wheeling Jesuit.  First serve for the match is set for 5 p.m. from the McDonough Center.
 
This will be the second straight year the Golden Eagles and Fighting Scots have squared off in the opening round of the Big Dance, with Clarion claiming a 3-0 win the last time the teams met in the NCAA Tournament.  Clarion has not been as lucky with the Fighting Scots this season, though, dropping a pair of 3-1 decisions to them in each of the regular season meetings this year.
 
The first meeting between the teams this season came on Oct. 2 in Edinboro.  Four Golden Eagles cracked double-digits in kills, led by 11 apiece by Marissa Robertson and Taylor Braunagel.  In the second meeting of the year, Gabrielle Olson hit .360 with 11 kills and Braunagel added a match-high 14 kills. Robertson had a double-double of 11 kills and 13 digs.
 
The 2015 selection of the Golden Eagles is the seventh straight year Mills has guided her team to the NCAA Tournament. In 2010 Clarion won the East Regional and made it to the Elite 8. Mills has an overall record at Clarion of 228-87 and a PSAC record of 126-38.  Clarion has won their first round NCAA Playoff match in each of their last three appearances, but lost in the semifinals.
 
The Golden Eagles will look in part to its pair of First Team All-PSAC West selections Gabrielle Olson and Mackenzie Biggs, who on Wednesday were both named to the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) All-Atlantic Region team.  Olson was named to the first team while Biggs was an honorable mention, and both players were at their best during conference play. 
 
Olson led the Pennsylvania State Athletics Conference (PSAC) with a .379 hitting percentage in 2015 and averaged 2.44 kills per set on the season.  She also ranked second on the Golden Eagles with a 3.09 points per set average.  Olson was even better in conference play, leading the PSAC with a .400 hitting percentage and ranking third in the league with a 1.21 blocks per set average. 
 
Biggs averaged 2.45 kills per set, just a tick above Olson for the season and third on the team behind Taylor Braunagel and Marissa Robertson.  That mark jumped to a 2.72 kills per set average in PSAAC play, and her conference hitting percentage of .263 ranked 16th-best in the league.  Like Olson, Biggs was stingy at the net, averaging 0.93 blocks per set in conference play to rank ninth in the PSAC in that category.
 
Braunagel was an all-conference honorable mention in 2015, averaging a team-best 3.14 kills per set that ranked 11th in the league.  That averaged jumped to an impressive 3.48 kills per set in conference action. 
 
Setter Kaley Pittsley led the conference in total assists (1,388) and assists per set (10.60) and set the Golden Eagles to the fifth-best team hitting percentage in the league at .195 on the season.  Morgan Seybold was among the league's leaders in digs, ranking first with 766 total digs and fifth with an average of 5.86 digs per set.