MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Wrapping up the regular season in Texas for the first time since 2016, the West Virginia University volleyball team treks to Waco on Wednesday for an 8 p.m. ET league tilt with No. 25 Baylor at the Ferrell Center.
 
The matchup will air on FOX Sports Southwest Plus, with John Morris and Katie Staiger on the call. Live stats will be available for the match through StatBroadcast.
 
"I think we're making good strides," fourth-year coach Reed Sunahara said. "The players are working hard, and we're getting better. We have two big matches ahead of us at Baylor and Texas this week, and I'm looking forward to closing out the regular season on a high note."
 
Wednesday's contest marks the second meeting of the season between the two squads, as West Virginia (11-17, 2-12) dropped a heartbreaking five-set match to Baylor (18-8, 10-5) in Morgantown on Oct. 13. Junior outside hitter Katelyn Evans led the team with 19 kills, as WVU finished the match hitting .246, with a season-high 64 kills, 73 digs and seven team blocks. Baylor had 64 kills, 72 digs and six team blocks. Yossiana Pressley led BU's offense with 21 kills, while Tara Wulf had a team-high 21 digs.
 
West Virginia and Baylor first met in 1986, competing in a trio of neutral-site matchups before WVU joined the Big 12 in 2012. BU owns a 13-3 lead in the series and is 5-2 in Waco. The last time WVU won in Waco was on Nov. 23, 2013, as the Mountaineers captured their first-ever win over the Lady Bears. West Virginia's four-set win in Waco jump-started a string of victories from 2013-14, including a season sweep over Baylor in 2014. The last time the Mountaineers outlasted the Lady Bears was on Nov. 22, 2014.
 
Most recently, WVU dropped a three-set match to Oklahoma on Nov. 17, capping its regular-season home slate at the WVU Coliseum, in Morgantown. OU took the match in set scores of 29-27, 25-21 and 25-17. Sophomore middle blocker Katie DeMeo led WVU with nine kills, hitting a team-best .421 and adding four blocks in the match. Freshman outside hitter Kristin Lux and Evans each had eight kills apiece, as the Mountaineers posted 39 kills and nine team blocks in the loss.
 
DeMeo currently ranks fourth in the Big 12 Conference and 30th nationally in blocks per set, with 1.32. DeMeo, a 2018 CoSIDA Academic All-District 2 Volleyball Team member, is on pace to etch her name in the WVU single-season record book. Her average of 1.32 blocks per set would rank No. 3 all-time by a Mountaineer sophomore and ninth overall in a single season in program history. Additionally, she boasts 115 total blocks on the year, nine shy of moving into the top-four all-time by a sophomore.
 
Offensively, Evans leads the team with 3.17 kills per set to rank ninth in the Big 12, while freshman setter Lacey Zerwas paces WVU in assists, with 9.22 per set, to rank seventh in the league.
 
Baylor has won six of its last seven matches, as the Bears were tabbed No. 25 in the latest American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Top-25 Poll released on Monday. BU is playing as a ranked team for the first time since dropping a three-set home loss to Kansas State on Oct. 20.
 
Pressley is averaging a league-leading 4.82 kills per set and 5.28 points per set as an outside hitter. Shelly Fanning also sits atop the conference with a .401 hitting efficiency and ranks ninth in the league with 1.13 blocks per set.
 
Of note, the Mountaineers are one win away from collecting their 700th win in program history. West Virginia currently holds a 699-740 all-time record since its inaugural season in 1974.
 
Looking ahead, the Mountaineers will close their regular-season slate with a 2 p.m. ET league tilt at No. 5 Texas (18-4, 13-1) on Saturday, Nov. 24. The Longhorn Network will televise Saturday's match. The contest will be streamed live through WatchESPN and the ESPN app.
 
For more information on the Mountaineers, visit WVUsports.com and follow WVUVolleyball on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.