Posted: Nov 11, 2013
Printable Bracket
NCAA Release
INDIANAPOLIS – For the second time in as many years and for the third time in its history, the State University of New York at New Paltz women's volleyball team earned a Pool "C" berth into the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship Tournament, gaining one of 19 Pool "C" bids into the 2013 edition of the event. The Hawks will face Colby-Sawyer College in the first round of the tournament on Friday, Nov. 15, and they will be headed to the eight-team Clarkson Regional in Potsdam, N.Y.
The complete tournament field includes 64 teams from across the nation that will compete at eight regional locations.
New Paltz holds a 32-6 overall record, but its tournament fate hung in the balance Sunday afternoon, as it lost to Buffalo State, 3-1, in the 2013 State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) Volleyball Championship Tournament final.
The Hawks, who hosted the six-team SUNYAC Tournament by virtue of being the conference's regular-season champion, are making their fourth NCAA Tournament appearance. They earned at-large berths into the tournament in 2008, 2012 and 2013, and in 2009, they picked up the SUNYAC's automatic bid by winning the conference title.
Colby-Sawyer (22-10) gained entry into the tournament through the North Atlantic Conference's (NAC) automatic bid, as it captured its third consecutive NAC title on Saturday. New Paltz and Colby-Sawyer last met on Oct. 6, 2012, as the Hawks won, 3-1, at Springfield College's Tom Hay Women's Volleyball Invitational. The two teams shared two common opponents this year: the Stevens Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts-Boston. New Paltz went 2-0 against both of those teams, while Colby-Sawyer lost to Stevens but beat UMass-Boston.
The winner of the New Paltz-Colby-Sawyer match will take on the winner of the first-round match between Richard Stockton College (30-5) and Rivier College (27-8). Richard Stockton is the automatic qualifier out of the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC), while Rivier is the automatic qualifier out of the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC).
On the other side of the Clarkson Regional bracket, New York University (27-7) squares off with Nazareth College (29-8), while host and 23rd-ranked Clarkson University (33-6) matches up with Westfield State University (19-14) in the first round. NYU enters the field as a Pool "C" team, while Nazareth captured the Empire 8's automatic bid. Clarkson secured the Liberty League's automatic bid, while Westfield State gained the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference's (MASCAC) automatic berth.
The second-round matches are slated for Saturday, Nov. 16, while the third-round match, which will determine the regional champion, is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 17.
Buffalo State earned the SUNYAC's automatic bid and squares off with the No. 20 University of Chicago on Thursday, Nov. 14, in the first round at the Calvin Regional.
