RICHARDSON, TX (11.02.17) - It took less than an hour for the UT Dallas volleyball team to advance to the winner's bracket final of the American Southwest Conference Championship Tournament after a 3-0 win over Concordia Texas Thursday night.

TOURNAMENT CENTRAL

Tournament-host Comets (22-9) had an opening-round bye after claiming the ASC East Division title and had to wait for CTX to down East Texas Baptist in three sets earlier in the day. In the final match of the match of the need, UTD needed just 59 minutes to dispatch the Tornados, setting up a 5 p.m. Friday match with West Division winner Mary Hardin-Baylor. The winner of that match will advance to the conference title match on Saturday.

In a rare start, sophomore Jillian Via sparked the Comets with a career-high 12 kills, hitting .300 for the match. Emma Wallbrown, who was named the ASC East Most Valuable Player earlier in the week, added 11 kills as UTD finished the match with a .262 team hitting percentage. 

The Comets got off to a slow start as CTX (17-13) would secure a 11-9 lead in the opening set before UTD took control. The Comets would end the set on a 16-4 run to take a 25-15 victory. UTD then opened the second set with a 6-0 run and secured a 10-1 lead as the Comets rolled to a 25-11 to take a 2-0 lead. The Comets then secured the 3-0 victory with a 25-20 win in the third stanza, getting four kills from Wallbrown.

In other opening-day action, Hardin-Simmons knocked off Texas-Tyler, 3-1, in the first match of the day. HSU then dropped a 3-0 decision to Mary Hardin-Baylor. ETBU and HSU will open Friday with an elimination match at 12 p.m., followed another elimination match between CTX and UTT.