Teams: Volleyball: Press Releases

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

VOLLEYBALL TO MAKE SECOND APPEARANCE IN NCAA TOURNAMENT

MEDFORD – The Tufts University Volleyball team earned the second seed in the NCAA Division III Tournament regionals set to be played at Colby College on Thursday through Saturday (Nov. 10-12) this week. The Jumbos (27-6) will play seventh seed Emmanuel College (20-17) in the first round on Thursday at 6:00 PM.

All of the first round matches are on Thursday. MIT (28-8), the #4 seed, will play against #5 Bridgewater State (29-9) at 1 PM. No. 3 seed Smith College (23-6) takes on #6 Colby-Sawyer (29-8) at 3:30 PM. Top seed Colby (34-3), which defeated Tufts 3-0 in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) championship match on Sunday (Nov. 13), will play #8 seed Mount Ida (21-8) at 8:30 PM.

If the Jumbos win on Thursday, they would take on the Smith/Colby-Sawyer winner in a regional semifinal on Friday at 4:30 PM. The other semifinal match will be played at 7:00 PM on Friday. The regional final is set for Saturday at 7 p.m. The regional champion will travel to Salem, Virginia for an NCAA quarterfinal on November 17. The New England Regional winner will take on the Mid-Atlantic Regional winner in the quarterfinal match.

"I am really excited that our team has this opportunity," said Coach Cora Thompson, a 1999 Tufts grad who played on the last Tufts team to make NCAAs in 1996. Tufts lost 3-0 at Coast Guard in the first round.

"They are being awarded for a great season of solid play," Thompson said. "This has been a great team to be a part of and all of our players and members of our staff are excited. It will be a very tough weekend playing against the top teams in New England. However, we are looking forward to the challenge. We will be playing our hearts out knowing that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain in this regional championship."

The Jumbos enter the NCAAs one victory shy of matching the team record for wins in a season (28), set last year and in 1995. Tufts had victories over nationally ranked programs from Williams and Cortland State during the season, along with a 3-0 victory against the opening opponent Emmanuel. The team traveled to the Emory University National Invitational in Atlanta late in October and split four matches. They also had a tight 3-2 loss to a nationally ranked Eastern University team at the Tufts Invitational on October 1. Tufts finished second in NESCAC during the regular season with a 9-1 record.

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