The stakes will be high for the Western Kentucky volleyball team, which wraps up the home portion of the schedule with a chance to clinch a conference championship this weekend.

WKU faces FIU at 6 p.m. on Friday and noon on Saturday needing two wins to lock up the regular-season crown. Throw in a senior day celebration on Saturday and it has a chance to be a pretty emotional weekend for the Hilltoppers.

“This is big,” WKU coach Travis Hudson said. “This is the one we’ve been working towards for the last month and a half. We’ve taken care of business up until now. We’ve got a chance to win a conference championship in our building this weekend and need to. That last weekend we are playing a Middle Tennessee team who is hot right now and playing really, really well. We’d rather not have to go on the road and have to secure a conference championship there. There’s nothing like doing it in your own building.”

WKU (22-4 overall, 12-0 Conference USA) enter the weekend with a three-game lead in conference play with four games remaining. Two wins this weekend guarantees the title – and the top seed in the conference tournament – but any setback and it sets up a battle at Middle Tennessee next week.

Hudson said FIU is a very talented offensive team that will present a challenge for WKU.

“This is a week that is about defense,” Hudson said. “We are playing two of the most talented offensive teams in the conference the next two weekends. They’re both a problem. It won’t be because we are very good offensively that we win. We can’t let them turn into slugfests or we are going to have a chance to lose. We’ve got to defend.

“ … We will be good enough to win offensively on most nights. This weekend will be about our ability to stop FIU.”

A win Friday sets up a big Saturday match which will begin with WKU honoring its three seniors – Paige Briggs, Shannon Keck and Cameron Mosley.

“I hate them, to be honest – I hate senior day,” Hudson said. “This is the tough part – when you love them like I love them and coach them like I coach them. The term family gets thrown around way too loosely in college athletics, but these kids truly become part of my family. You look at those three women and their path and the young women they have turned into. Forget about volleyball, you look at the young women they have turned into and how they have represented this university for four years and their families for four years. They are a success story and it’s hard, it’s hard for me to walk in there and look them in the eye for the last time in Diddle Arena.”

Briggs has had a stellar career that has put her among the best in the program’s storied history. Hudson said while there will be a lot of talk about Briggs this weekend, as there should be, that Keck and Mosley have had a huge impact on the program as well.

“The reason we have been what we’ve been this year is Shannon Keck, Cam Mosley and Callahan Wiegandt,” Hudson said. “They are three kids that have played smaller roles on this team, but if you came and visited practice those kids are playing every single day in practice like it is the conference championship match. When you are a competitor, you want to play and it is hard to get yourselves there mentally every day in a situation where you are not playing as much as you want.

“ … These kids come in every day and play at their ceiling of who they are. It’s a statement to the kind of kids they are and the kind of families they come from.”

With so much on the line this weekend and the added emotion of senior day, Hudson said that he hopes the team will get the support they deserve – challenging fans to pack Diddle Arena this weekend.

“This is the weekend we’ve got to get people back in this building,” Hudson said. “It’s our last two home matches. We are playing for a conference championship and we are saying goodbye to our senior class which includes one of the all-time greats in Paige Briggs. The challenge is levied to the people in the community and on this campus to get out and support this team.

“Fans stop me all year long and want to know how this team is going to be and are we going to play (for a championship). We are playing for a championship in Diddle Arena. Our kids have done their part and now it is time for our community to reciprocate.”{&end}