Over the next two days, the champion of America East women’s volleyball will be decided. The Binghamton University Bearcats are just hoping that their talent and recent successes will propel them to the top this weekend.
The Bearcats (13-15, 5-5 AE) are the No. 3 seed in the tournament, finishing in a tie with three other teams for second through fifth place in the conference. To make the tournament, Binghamton won its last two conference games after losing five of its previous six. According to senior Brianna Strong, the team is past its poor play.
“I feel pretty good,” she said about her team. “I thought we played well against Syracuse earlier this week and I also felt we played decently against Hartford. We were kind of in a slump there for a good five games, which is very disheartening and very hard to get through. I feel like we are [past that], we’ve had a couple good days of practice.”
Binghamton head coach Glenn Kiriyama agreed with Strong’s assessment.
“Yeah, that was a little while ago and we’ve had a couple good matches since then,” he said of his team’s slump. “We’re just working on some small details and hopefully we can bring it all together.”
BU’s opponent in the first round will be No. 2 seed University of New Hampshire. UNH (13-14, 5-5 AE) began the season 1-4 in conference, and the odds of making the tournament seemed slim. However, the Wildcats forced the four-way tie by winning five of its last six games, including a three-set sweep of the Bearcats in the West Gym. The first time the teams squared off was Binghamton’s conference season opener, and the Bearcats took the match in four sets in New Hampshire.
Neither team lacks when it comes to talent. Each team features a member of the America East All-Conference first team and second team, which were announced Thursday. Junior co-captain and hitter Michelle McDonough, who was second in the conference in kills, made the first team, while junior outside hitter Anna Lejina, who finished third in kills, was named to the second team. UNH has first-team member Lindsay Fogarty, a senior middle blocker, and second-team member Kirsten Bates, a senior. In addition, freshman Alex Roland of the Bearcats was named to the All-Rookie team, and Wildcat junior Sara Heldman was named co-Defensive Specialist of the Year.
“We just need to really handle the ball when it’s on our side, with the serve-receive and digging and be able to put the ball away when we have those opportunities and take advantage of any errors that happen on the other side and just really capitalize on things when they come up,” said Kiriyama.
University at Albany (20-8, 10-0 AE) was the regular season conference champion, and as No. 1 seed it will host the tournament this year. University of Maryland, Baltimore County (13-12, 5-5 AE) rounds out the tournament teams as the No. 4 seed. The Bearcats feel that they have a good opportunity to succeed, despite the quality of opponents they will face.
“I think we have a really good chance,” said senior middle blocker Dawn Lammert. “If everyone plays on, we’ve seen what we can do. We took Albany to five games and kept it close, so as long as we play our game and bring it Friday and Saturday, we have a really good chance.”
Strong echoed those sentiments.
“I’m actually the only one left who went to NCAAs here, so I actually know what it feels like to have that win and go play someplace big,” she said. “We’ve been playing well these last couple weeks and hopefully we can go in to this weekend with a bunch of confidence and we are capable of winning this. We gave Albany a game last time we played them; it was a really close five-game match so anything can happen this weekend. We just have to play well.”
The Bearcats and the Wildcats are scheduled to face off on Friday at 3 p.m. in Albany. The winner will then take on the winner of the Albany/UMBC game on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the championship game.