Senior defensive specialist Lindsey Gould has been one of the best servers in the Sun Belt Conference during her career, ranking No. 3 in service aces in the conference as a sophomore and No. 6 last season.

As she prepares to play her final regular season match in Diddle Arena this weekend, Gould is the conference leader with 43 aces.

“My serve is more of a floater, which makes it tougher for the other team to pass,” Gould said.

The biggest adjustment to her serve occurred in her sophomore year and almost by accident, Gould said. She made an adjustment to her serve that made a tremendous improvement.

“I was practicing with a friend and tried something new, and it just worked for me,” Gould said.

Head Coach Travis Hudson said Gould has a “rather unique serve.” She approaches the service line from a different angle than most players, then jumps from one leg as she hits the ball.

“She has a unique knack to drop the ball into the gaps,” Hudson said.

Gould has worked hard to perfect her serve ever since she developed it, which Hudson said has been key to her development.

“Any good server gets better through repetition, and that is a big reason why Gould is first in the conference in aces,” Hudson said.

Gould leads a serving corps that Hudson called one of the best he’s coached in his 15 years with the Lady Toppers.

Western (21-7, 10-3 Sun Belt) ranks second in the conference with 162 service aces. The Lady Toppers average 1.52 aces per match, .58 more than their opponents.

Sophomore setter Lauren Stuckel has 34 aces this season, fourth in the Sun Belt.

“The serve has to be perfect to get an ace, and we know where we have to place it,” Stuckel said.

Hudson said serving is crucial to the Lady Toppers’ success.

“Serving and passing are the two most critical parts of the game, and serving is definitely the most critical to defense,” Hudson said.

Gould agrees that having good servers benefits the team.

“It is very important, because it starts off the play and makes defense easier,” Gould said.

Hudson said he has seen drastic improvement in all aspects of Gould’s game since she arrived at Western.

Gould is one of four Lady Toppers to have played in every set this season, and she ranks third on the team with 182 digs.

“She isn’t necessarily flashy, but she does a lot of stuff that goes by without noticing,” Hudson said.

Stuckel said Gould has been playing defense “out of her mind” lately, but Gould is more concerned about being a role model for the team.

“I have worked hard this year to be a leader,” Gould said. “I’ve been here for four years, so I know the ins and outs.”

The Lady Toppers will play their final home matches of the regular season this weekend. They face Florida International, which has a 14-0 conference record and beat Western in four sets on Oct. 2, at 7 p.m. tonight and Florida Atlantic at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

It’s rare for a veteran coach to be undefeated against a conference foe.

But Head Coach Travis Hudson is a combined 30-0 against Sun Belt Conference opponents South Alabama and Troy in his 15 years coaching at Western.

“I think it has a lot to do with having great players and better talent,” Hudson said.

Western (21-7, 10-3 Sun Belt) defeated South Alabama (25-16, 25-11, 25-12) on Saturday and Troy (25-15, 25-12, 25-13) on Friday.

The Lady Toppers have only dropped one set total against the teams during senior middle hitter Brittany Bowen’s time at Western.

“It just shows we get mentally prepared when we play them,” Bowen said.

The Lady Toppers have consistently taken care of the teams in the bottom of the conference. Troy ranks fourth in the Sun Belt’s East Division with a 6-8 conference record, while South Alabama is in last place at 2-12.

“It couldn’t be more important to get wins over these teams,” Bowen said. “We can’t drop these because it will just mess up what we have already accomplished.”

The Lady Toppers play the teams in their last two games of the season, facing Troy on Nov. 13 and South Alabama on Nov. 14.

“Those are the games that will matter the most, because those might determine tournament seeding for us,” Hudson said.

Freshman libero Sarah Rogers said the Lady Toppers know their team is better than the teams in the bottom of the conference, but it’s their job to prove it.

Western has not dropped a set in four of its last five matches, and Hudson said the team is right where he hoped it would be near the end of the season.

“I definitely feel like we are putting things together,” he said. “As a coach, you just love to see the 3-0 matches.”

Rogers said the shutout matches bring the team’s morale up.

“It makes it so much easier on us and Coach whenever we get the job done in three sets,” she said.

Hudson said his team’s improved play is in large part because of the increased playing time of the young players on the team.

“We are more relaxed, and that comes with experience,” Hudson said. “When you aren’t coming from behind in games, it takes a big load off.”

Bowen said the team’s success allows them to “have a lot of fun” during matches, which has been a factor in improving their results as well.

“We play better when we are having fun and being relaxed,” Bowen said.

The Lady Toppers are third overall in the conference, two games behind second-place Middle Tennessee State, with four matches left in the season.

“Seeding is important, but I am confident in our team no matter what our seed for the tournament is,” Hudson said.

When fans think of heated sports rivalries, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees or the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics might immediately come to mind.

Though competition between Louisville’s Assumption High School and Sacred Heart Academy isn’t as well-known, it could be just as heated.

The Lady Toppers (10-4) start two Assumption alumni in senior defensive stopper Lindsey Gould and freshman libero Sarah Rogers, while junior defensive stopper Kelly Potts graduated from Sacred Heart.

“It is the biggest rivalry I’ve ever played in,” Rogers said. “I’ve heard that the (Middle Tennessee State and Western) rivalry is big, but I don’t see it matching with the Assumption-Sacred Heart rivalry.”

The volleyball teams at both all-girls high schools are consistently ranked among the best in the nation. According to MaxPreps.com, Sacred Heart is currently listed 21st nationally, while Assumption is 22nd.

Potts said the teams play each other four or five times a year because they play in many of the same tournaments.

“The biggest games are always when we play on each other’s home courts,” Potts said. “The atmosphere is amazing.”

Potts and Gould, who graduated in 2005, were teammates on a Kentucky Indiana Volleyball Academy club team throughout high school.

“We became good friends when were teammates for our club team, but there was still that rivalry when we played against each other,” Potts said.

Because the rivals compete in the same region, only one has a chance to advance to the state tournament each year. Assumption has won 14 state titles compared to one for Sacred Heart.

Two of Assumption’s championships came in 2004-2005, Gould’s junior and senior seasons. The Rockets won the national title in 2005.

Gould said Assumption’s title dominance means she and Rogers have an advantage when their conversations with Potts turn to the rivalry between the teams.

“We gang up on her all the time, but it is all in fun,” Gould said.

Many Sacred Heart and Assumption players move on to the collegiate level, including eight of the nine players from Rogers’ senior class, with five of those competing in Division I-A.

“The players on those two teams are as good as any volleyball players in the country,” coach Travis Hudson said. “They are all very well-trained and expect to win.”

Gould said playing for a championship program in high school prepared her for the level of competition she’s faced at Western.

“I’ve always felt lucky to play for Assumption,” Gould said. “I was blessed to play for that kind of program with a great head coach.”

The Sun Belt Conference’s preseason coaches picked Western (1-2) to finish third in the league this season, but that doesn’t bother the team much.

The Lady Toppers were also expected to finish third in 2008, when they won the conference tournament and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the second year in a row.

“We were all smiling when coach told us the news,” senior setter Brittany Bowen said. “It is all the more motivation to show everybody we are as good as last year.”

Western lost three players from last year’s team to graduation, including two all-Americans in middle hitter Megan Argabright and setter Julia Noe, causing head coach Travis Hudson to use four first-time starters in the first three matches of the year.

“Certainly we aren’t sticking our head in the sand in saying we don’t have some big shoes to fill, but I really like the makeup of this year,” Hudson said.

Hudson said one of the team’s strengths is its depth, but the Lady Toppers may struggle due to inexperience.

“When we put the pieces together and our young players that have to step in get comfortable playing, we will be very good,” he said.

Western brings in a recruiting class, ranked in the top 50 by PrepVolleyball.com, that Hudson hopes will bolster the team.

“The best way to capitalize on success is through recruiting, to continue bring in quality players, and we have certainly done that,” Hudson said.

One of those recruits is freshman libero Sarah Rogers, who leads the Lady Toppers in digs with 47 after only three matches. Rogers was named to the all-tournament team at the season-opening Tennessee Tournament, where Western lost to Lipscomb (23-25, 17-25, 25-27) and Tennessee (25-18, 16-25, 22-25, 25-23, 12-15) on Saturday but defeated Tennessee Tech (25-19, 25-19, 25-18) on Sunday morning.

Rogers said she thinks the team has a lot of potential despite losing the first two matches of the season.

“We have extremely high energy and I feel we are going to be a tough team to beat once we get it going,” she said.

Hudson said the hardest part this year will be to “wipe the slate clean” from last year’s team, which advanced to the NCAA tournament but fell to Cincinnati in the first round.

Bowen said she knows returning to the NCAA tournament for a third straight year will be a challenge, but she thinks the team is ready.

“People are stepping up,” she said. “We know we have large shoes to fill, but we will be fine.”

The Lady Toppers hope to even their record when they travel to Nashville today to play Belmont at 6:30 p.m.