RED HAWKS TO FACE NAZARETH IN FIRST ROUND OF NCAA TOURNAMENT

Montclair , NJ (11/5/07) – After an improbable run to the New Jersey Athletic Conference championship, the Montclair State volleyball team will make its first appearance in the NCAA Division III Tournament and the Red Hawks will not have to travel too far for it. MSU will face Nazareth College at 3:30 in the regional tournament to be held at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ on Thursday, November 8.

The MSU-Nazareth game will be the second of four contests that day as SUNYAC champion Cortland faces Skyline Conference winner Russell Sage in the first match at 1:00 pm. The third match features Skidmore College against CUNYAC champion Hunter College at 6:00 pm with host Stevens taking on Bridgewater State (MA) College in the final match of the day at 8:30 pm. The second round will be held on Friday, November 9 with the regional championship slated for Saturday, September 10. The regional winners advance to the NCAA Division III Final Four, which will be held at Illinois Wesleyan University on November 15-17.

Montclair State (22-14) punched its ticket to the NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship by pulling off a pair of upsets to earn the NJAC’s automatic bid to the tournament. The Red Hawks, seeded No. 3 in the conference tournament, won three matches in five days, including road upsets of the No. 2 and No. 1 seeds to claim its second NJAC championship, a decade after its first (1997).

Under first-year head coach Elise Cooper, who was hired in early July as the program’s first full-time coach, Montclair is enjoying its finest season in the history of the program which began in 1989. Prior to this year, MSU had made just one post-season appearance – 1999 when Montclair qualified for the ECAC Division III South Tournament. With a roster comprised of 10 sophomores and two freshmen, Montclair was chosen as the No. 5 team in the preseason coaches’ poll and the league’s “dark horse” pick to win. That selection later proved to be prophetic as Montclair finished third in the regular season and posted a 6-2 NJAC, its best conference finish since 1997.

The third-place showing gave Montclair a first-round home game in the NJAC Tournament for the first time since 2000 and the Red Hawks made the most of it, knocking off William Paterson in three sets to move into the semifinals where they would meet Richard Stockton, a team MSU had never beaten in 34 career meetings, including a 3-2 loss at home on September 25 in contest that saw Montclair fail to convert five match-point opportunities. But this time around things would be different for the Red Hawks as they battled the Ospreys to a fifth and deciding set only this time finishing the match with a 15-11 victory to reach the NJAC Tournament title game for the first time since 1998.

MSU’s third trip to the conference tournament final would be a daunting task as the Red Hawks took on New Jersey City University, which had not lost a home match since November 2003, a string of 43 consecutive wins. In fact, the Gothic Knights entered the championship game winners of 16 straight matches and had lost only one set during that span – to Montclair State on October 6. NJCU also defeated the Red Hawks twice during the regular season, but like its semifinal win, Montclair would turn things around. MSU won the first two sets by identical 30-27 scores before New Jersey City took the third set, 30-19. The fourth set became a marathon with the Red Hawks failing to close out the match at 29-27 and then facing a decisive fifth set a 35-34 when freshman Devon Johnston (Moorestown, NJ / Moorestown) tied the set for a fifth time. Sophomore Karen Martin ( Sicklerville, NJ / Washington Township) gave Montclair another championship point with a kill and the Red Hawks had their championship when the Gothic Knights committed an attack error.

The victory was Montclair’s 22 nd of the season, setting a new school record.

Nazareth earned its way into the tournament as one of the 23 at-large selections and will return to Hoboken for the second time in less than a week. The Golden Flyers are 26-11 this season finishing 6-2 in the Empire 8 during the regular season. Nazareth lost to RIT, 3-2 in the semifinals of the conference tournament at Stevens on November 3. Laura Persico ( Ravena, NY / Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk) leads Nazareth with 550 kills while Elizabeth Tregan ( Plattsburgh, NJ / Plattsburgh) has 440 to go along with 50 blocks.

This will be the first meeting between MSU and Nazareth and the two share just one common opponent in the University of Rochester. Montclair State fell to the Yellow Jackets, 3-0 at the Red Dragon Classic in Cortland, NY on August 31 while Nazareth posted a 3-0 win at home on October 24.

Against the other teams in the Regional, Montclair has faced Russell Sage (a win in 2000) and Bridgewater State (a loss in 2001) just once. The Red Hawks are 5-5 versus Stevens with the teams last meeting in 2004 as the Ducks prevailed 3-0. MSU is 0-1 against Cortland losing to the Red Dragons in the 2006 season opener and Montclair has never beaten Skidmore in three meetings. The most familiar opponent in the field is Hunter as Montclair State holds and 8-6 lead in that series but the Hawks won this year’s battle, 3-2 in the Hunter Invitational back on September 29.