SAN ANGELO – The road for any potential team to win the LSC Tournament and get the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament runs through the Junell Center this weekend, where eight teams will compete from Thursday-Saturday for the tournament crown.

The Belles earned the right to host the conference tournament due to winning the conference regular season championship, going 16-1 in conference play.

As a team, the Belles are third in the conference in hitting percentage and second in opponent hitting percentage. They also rank second in kills and opponent kills.

The Belles' offense has been led by Kailyn Gilbreath. The senior leads the team in kills and assists and is hitting .315 for the season.

In terms of kills, she is followed by Delaney Fuller and Elsa Lamphere with 232 and 215 kills, respectively. Fuller is also second on the team in digs with 298.

Baleigh Allen has been a force on both sides of the ball, leading the conference with 1.24 blocks per set and ranking third in the LSC with a .366 hitting percentage.

The Belles' opening match will be on Thursday at 7:30 p.m., where they will take on eight-seed UT Permian Basin. In the regular season, the Belles won 3-1 over the Falcons in Odessa. The Falcons swept St. Mary's in the first round to advance to the quarterfinals.

The Falcons are led by current offensive player of the week Aquincia Strambler, who had 40 kills for the Falcons in their last two regular season matches, including 21 kills in an upset of UT Tyler, last weekend.

The winner of the Belles-Falcons matchup will face the winner of four-seed West Texas A&M versus Oklahoma Christian. The Eagles, the 12^th seed in the tournament, advanced in an upset of fifth-seeded Texas A&M-Commerce last night in East Texas, winning in five sets.

The team to come out of the Belles' side of the bracket will face the team to come out of the other side of the bracket, which includes second-seed UT Tyler, third-seed Lubbock Christian, six-seed DBU and 10-seed St. Edward's.

The proceedings this weekend will start with the LSC Awards Banquet tonight at 7 p.m., with the awards portion being streamed on the Lone Star Conference Network. All matches this weekend can be found on the LSC Network.