WHEELING, W.Va. (Nov. 17) - The Wheeling Jesuit University volleyball team posted a thrilling come-from-behind 3-2 win over Seton Hill in the Atlantic Regional Tournament Championship Game in front of a raucous McDonough Center crowd Saturday night.
The Cardinals (37-3) win the Atlantic Region for the fifth time in the past six years and advance to the NCAA Division II National Quarterfinals which will start on Thursday, November 29 at the A.J. Palumbo Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Teams from the eight regions that advance to Pittsburgh will be reseeded before the quarterfinals begin. Meanwhile, Seton Hill concludes its incredible run at 26-9 overall with a Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championship in hand.
The Cardinals lost the first two sets of the match, but battled back to force a decisive fifth set.
WJU jumped out to an 11-7 lead in the deciding set behind four kills from junior
Cassie Meyer (Jackson Center, Ohio/Jackson Center). Seton Hill answered with five-straight points to take the lead at 12-11 to force a Cardinal timeout. Wheeling Jesuit came out of the break composed and like they have done so many times this season, closed out the match with four-unanswered points. With the score 14-12, sophomore
Makenna Babb (Arlington, Ohio/McComb) delivered the championship-clinching kill to help the Cardinals secure the regional title and advance.
Meyer led all players with 24 kills, while both redshirt-sophomoreÂ
Breanna Kramer (Norwalk, Ohio/Monroeville) and junior
Haley Kramer (Norwalk, Ohio/Monroeville) added 16 apiece.Â
Junior setter
Stephanie Sylvester (Oregon, Ohio/St. Ursula Academy) established a new career-high with 66 assists to go with 12 digs. Four players finished with double-digit digs, led by sophomore libero
Audrey Francis (Sidney, Ohio/Fairlawn), who had 31 in the win.
Seton Hill, who was coming off of an emotional five-set win over Gannon the night before, was unfazed in the opening sets of the night. The Griffins posted 17 kills in each of the first two sets and got into the lanes of the Cardinal hitters to frustrate their timing. Meyer, WJU's leading hitter, was limited to just five kills through the two sets.
Backed into a corner, Wheeling Jesuit found its rhythm in the third set. Meyer helped the team take a 14-6 lead early on with five kills to match her total from the first two sets and the rest of the team followed. The Cardinals hit .390 as a team in the third set, finished with 20 kills, and slowed down Seton Hill's offense in the process.
The fourth set was never in doubt for the Cardinals. Freshman
Paige Rawlins (Pickerington, Ohio/Bishop Hartley) got the nod to serve and helped WJU take seven-straight points to start the set. The Cardinals posted a second 7-0 stretch later in the set and the Kramer twins notched back-to-back kills at the end to clinch a 25-13 win to send the match to a fifth set, where Wheeling Jesuit completed its incredible comeback to win the match and regional championship.Â
Both teams finished hitting above 24 percent, while the Griffins finished with nine blocks on defense.
Seton Hill's Viktoria Farian led her team with 21 kills and 21 digs in the title match loss.
The Cardinals will be making their fifth appearance in the NCAA Quarterfinals in the past six years. An announcement on their opponent in the quarterfinal round will come in the following days.
2018 NCAA Atlantic Regional All-Tournament Team
Morgan DeFloria (Shippensburg)
Chrissy Cotton (Clarion)
Lauren Sampson (Gannon)
Ashley Kerstes (Gannon)
Hanna Moeller (Seton Hill)
Leah Bisignani (Seton Hill)
Viktoria Farian (Seton Hill)
Cassie Meyer (WJU)
Audrey Francis (WJU)
Stephanie Sylvester (WJU)
Breanna Kramer (WJU)
