Courtesy Williams Sports Information

Box Score

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – Third-seeded Amherst (27-4, 7-3 in the NESCAC) defeated top-seeded Williams (25-7, 10-0) in four games on Sunday afternoon to win the 2006 NESCAC Volleyball Championship. After the Ephs won the first game 30-20, the third-seeded Jeffs rallied to win three straight games, 30-27, 30-27, 30-20. With the victory, Amherst earned an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

No. 3 seed Amherst edged No. 6 Trinity in the quarterfinals on Friday night and upset No. 2 seed Wesleyan in the semifinals on Saturday afternoon to advance to the final against No. 1 seed Williams. The Ephs and Jeffs split their two regular season matches.

Sophomore setter Sara Heller had 54 assists for the Jeffs, while senior co-captain Kristin Quinn provided 20 kills. First-year Bethany Belisle tallied a team-high 27 digs and junior Jaclyn DeMais was right behind her with 26 digs. Junior Whitney Kouvaris was also impressive, racking up 22 kills.

Though the Ephs came out strong, cruising to a 30-20 victory in the first game, Amherst regained the momentum with hard-fought 30-27 victory in the second game. Williams started out strong in the third game, leading 11-3, but once again Amherst fought back to win 30-27 and took a 2-1 lead in the match. The Jeffs ran away with the fourth game to win the championship.

Senior co-captains Alexis Knepp and Krista Suojanen led the Ephs, as Knepp recorded 63 assist and 17 digs and Suojanen came up with 4 kills, 9 digs and 1 service ace. First-year Alisha Cahlan (22 kills), first-year Chelsea Kubal (20 kills), and first-year Melissa Pun (16 digs) had solid performances for Williams.

2006 NESCAC VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP
Quarterfinals - Friday, November 3 at Williams
at No. 1 Williams 3, No. 8 Middlebury 1
vs. No. 2 Wesleyan 3, No. 7 Bowdoin 1
vs. No. 3 Amherst 3, No. 6 Trinity 0
No. 5 Connecticut College 3, vs. No. 4 Tufts 2

Semifinals - Saturday, November 4 at Williams
at No. 1 Williams 3, No. 5 Connecticut College 0
No. 3 Amherst 3, vs. No. 2 Wesleyan 2

Championship - Sunday, November 5 at Williams
No. 3 Amherst 3, at No. 1 Williams 1

2006 NESCAC VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

Friday, November 3 - Sunday, November 5
at No. 1 Seed

Friday, November 3
No. 8 at No. 1
No. 7 vs. No. 2
No. 6 vs. No. 3
No. 5 vs. No. 4

Semifinals - Saturday, November 4
Winner No.1/No. 8 vs. Winner No. 4/No. 5 - 1:00 p.m.
Winner No. 2/No. 7 vs. Winner No. 3/No. 6 - 3:30 p.m.

Championship - Sunday, November 5
Semifinal Winners - 1:00 p.m.

Format
The top 8 teams in the conference will qualify for the NESCAC Volleyball Championship beginning Friday, November 3 through Sunday, November 5.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship.  

Seeding
Seeding will be based on final conference standings of round robin play. The highest seeded team will host the Championship.

Pairings
Pairings will be announced Sunday, October 29.

Tie Breaking Procedures
Ties will be broken as follows:

Head-to-head result (if teams play each other more than once during the regular season, the game that appears on the league schedule will be the game that is counted).

If teams tied during the regular season, or there is a 3-way or more tie, the following tie breaking procedure will be used:

• Best match record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Best game record among tying teams, against one another (head-to-head).
• Point differential of matches between tied teams (points scored-points scored against).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 4 teams (including all teams at the 4th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against top 8 teams (including all teams at the 8th spot).
• Comparison of results of conference games played against conference teams in rank order.  Comparisons shall be made one team at a time starting with the highest ranked team.
• If the tie remains after comparing results against the highest ranked team, the results against the next team in rank order shall be used. This process is continued until a winner is determined.
• Coin flip (or similar random action involving all tied teams).

Note: In case of ties among three or more schools, the criteria above will be applied in order until a team is (or teams are) separated.  At that point, the process begins anew (returning to the first criteria) with the remaining teams.  The process is continued until the tie is eventually broken.  In cases where only a random action will break the tie of three or more teams, the random action will be applied to all teams involved in the tie.  For example, if three teams are tied and only a random action (pulling names out of a hat) will break the tie, each name will be pulled and seeded in order of being pulled.  Also, in the event that there are two (or more) groups of teams tied at different spots in the standings and the only criteria left that can be used to break those ties is a coin flip/random action, the coin flip/random action used to break the tie of one group (to put teams in rank order) will not affect the tie breaking procedures of the other group(s) of tied teams.