NEVADA, Mo. - Defending Women's Division 2 District O  volleyball champion Northeastern A&M begin a quest to return to the National Junior College Athletic Association  National Tournament Friday in the six-team single elimination playoff in the Hinkhouse gymnasium on the campus of Cottey College.


The top two seeds receive a first-round bye in the two-day tournament.
Coach Eric Iverson's Norse received the No. 1 seed after finishing 7-1 in the district and 15-15 overall. The Norse will square off against the winner of the Cottey College-East Central, Mo., quarterfinal match at 10 a.m. Saturday.
"Although we won last year and won the mid-season regional, we don't feel like we have a target on our backs heading into the post season," Iverson said. "We're not really focused on what other people think about us, we just want to go and have a really good complete weekend.
"Our focus is on being really consistent and having solid net play," Iverson said. "Throughout the regular season we went through a lot of different rotations and a lot of different experiments with our lineups to try to figure out who was going to be our best. The end result was we played a lot of girls."
Wentworth Military Academy of Lexington, Mo., earned the No. 2 seed. The Red Devils are 6-2 in the district and 20-7 on the season. The Red Devils face the winner of the Metropolitan Community College-Longview and St. Louis Community College quarterfinal match at noon Saturday in the semifinals.
Quarterfinal matches on Friday start at 5 p.m. with the No. 5 seed Cottey Comets (5-14 and 1-7) hosting No. 4 seed East Central College (17-25 and 4-4) of Union, Mo.
The No. 3 seed MCC-Longhview Lakers (10-24 and 5-3) of Lees Summit, Mo.,  meet the No. 6 seed Archers of St. Louis Community College (0-28 and 0-8) at 7 p.m. in the other quarterfinal match on Friday.
The championship match will be played Saturday at 2 p.m. Winner of the district tournament advances to the Women's Division 2 National Tournament, Nov. 21-23, at Toledo's Owens Community College.
"If we hadn't experimented we wouldn't be at our best point right now," Iverson said. "Because it was a long journey to get to where we're at, we're pleased and excited to be at this point."
Last year the Norse won the district crown before losing two straight matches in the NJCAA National Tournament in Toledo, Ohio.