Alabama State's volleyball team will play in their final in-season tournament this weekend when they travel to Baton Rouge, La., to play in the Southern University Tournament. The Lady Hornets will be one of four teams in the tournament, of which, all four teams are Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) members.

Alabama State and Alcorn State are from the East Division of the conference while Grambling State and Southern are from the West Division.

"We made it a point this year to play each of the conference teams from West Division and in this tournament we will face Grambling and Southern," Head Coach Penny Lucas-White said. "We will face Prairie View and Texas Southern in a couple of weeks and we will have some idea of where we stand with all of the SWAC teams once the conference tournament rolls around."

This tournament will be ASU's fifth and final in-season tournament of the season. After starting the season at tournaments hosted by Central Florida and North Carolina-Greensboro, ASU was able to host the ISTAP Collegiate Cup and two weeks ago played in Arizona State's Marriott Invitational. The next tournament for ASU will be the SWAC Tournament held towards the end of November.

The Lady Hornets had a lot of success in this tournament a year ago finishing with a 3-1 record and a second place finish. Their lone loss in the tournament came against Jackson State.

ASU is coming off consecutive road wins to open conference play and will head into this tournament with the two top hitters in the league. Sophomore's Amber Bennett (.289) and Myla Marshall (.269) sit one-two among the SWAC's leading hitters.

They are also two of the top blockers in the conference with Bennett leading the SWAC at 0.97 blocks per set and Marshall sixth at 0.65 blocks per set. Marshall is coming off a week which saw her named the SWAC's Defensive Player of the Week after registering 11 blocks (1BS, 10 BA) over the week. That includes a career-high tying seven at Mississippi Valley State.

ASU is the top assist team in the league even though they do not have anyone listed among the league leaders. The Lady Hornets have the luxury of having two passers on the court at all times and juniors Ellyn Jones (4.48 assist per set) and Brooke Beasley (4.43 per set). The duo has led ASU a league-best 9.86 assists per set.

Luiza Griz continues to lead the Lady Hornets in digs and has 188 on the season. That number gives her 966 career digs heading into weekend play, a weekend which she has the opportunity to collect her 1,000^th career dig.

ASU (7-12/2-0 SWAC) will face Alcorn State and Prairie View A&M on Friday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. On Saturday they will play Grambling State at noon and close out the tournament facing the host team, Southern, at 4 p.m.