TOUGALOO, Miss. — Xavier University of Louisiana's road to 10 consecutive Gulf Coast Athletic Conference regular-season championships has been paved with plenty of dominating performances and, when needed, comebacks.
        Saturday was one of those needed comebacks. XULA rallied in the first and second sets against Dillard to earn a three-set victory against its city rival and clinch GCAC title No. 10.
        The score against Dillard was 25-23, 25-16, 25-18. Then XULA put the finishing touches on an unbeaten GCAC season record with a 25-8, 25-16, 25-18 victory against Tougaloo.
        Those were the final regular-season matches for XULA (16-4, 12-0), which will be top seeded and have a first-round bye in the GCAC Tournament April 9-10 at Talladega, Ala. There XULA will try win the tournament for the 10th consecutive time.
        "We're very happy to have won another regular-season title and head into the GCAC Tournament as the No. 1 seed," said Pat Kendrick, whose XULA teams are 52-0 in GCAC regular-season matches during her four seasons as head coach. "Our team is looking forward to the challenge of defending our tournament title and representing the GCAC at the national tournament."
        XULA defeated Dillard for the second consecutive day — that other score was 30-28, 25-19, 25-13 — and received another stiff challenge from the Lady Bleu Devils, who finished second in the GCAC. XULA needed a late first-set rally after trailing 21-18, then took control of the second set with a 12-1 run after trailing 14-11.
        XULA scored the first eight points of the final set and closed out its 26th consecutive victory against Dillard dating to 2010.
        Statistical leaders for XULA Saturday included Bria Mayes (two matches, 22 kills, .618 hitting percentage) and Vivica Price-Spraggins (two matches, 17 kills, .381 hitting percentage, 10 blocks).
        "It was all about team effort, unity and consistency," Price-Spraggins said. "It was the picture-perfect teamwork-makes-the-dream-work scenario."
        XULA's 10-season run in the conference includes a 120-2 record in GCAC regular-season matches — both losses were in five sets on the road (SUNO 2015, Talladega 2016) — and a 364-28 record in sets.
        The championship was XULA's sixth of 2020-21 and 149th all-time for its teams at the conference, group, district or region level. Producing the other titles in this academic year were women's cross country, women's basketball (tournament), men's basketball (tournament), competitive cheer and women's tennis (regular season). The cheer title occurred in an NAIA unaffiliated group, and women's tennis won the Southern States Athletic Conference in its first season of affiliate membership.