2023 NCAA Volleyball Tournament Preview

11/15/2023 12:00:00 PM

The Rundown

On the heels of its first conference title in over a decade, the Salisbury University volleyball team is Beantown bound for the 2023 NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament. The Sea Gulls will open the dance against the Williams Ephs in the first round on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. inside Rockwell Cage on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

The #D3vb Women's bracket is here ????

?? https://t.co/Dk7YaZDb5L #DIII50 | #WhyD3 pic.twitter.com/AirJHofWC0
— NCAA Division III (@NCAADIII) November 13, 2023

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How We Got Here
How They Got Here
Series History
What's At Stake

Salisbury went 20-7 under second-year head coach Nikki Binetti and earned the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament out of the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference (C2C).
The third-seeded Sea Gulls hosted and won the C2C Tournament, securing their first league championship since 2012. SU defeated second-seeded Christopher Newport 3-1 in the semifinals before outboxing top-seeded Mary Washington 3-2 in the finals. The wins were the third against each opponent this season, securing Salisbury a rare treble against both of its major rivals.
Mary Washington and CNU also made the field of 64, giving the C2C three schools in the bracket.
The Sea Gulls played 14 matches against 10 teams that earned NCAA Tournament bids, going 10-4 with wins over Stevenson, Mary Washington (x3), Sevens, Marymount (Va.), Washington & Lee, and Christopher Newport (x3).

Williams College earned an at-large bid out of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). The Ephs went 16-9 in the regular season and just 4-5 in league play but advanced to the NESCAC Tournament finals as the six-seed before falling to top-seeded Wesleyan.
The Ephs are playing in their second straight NCAA Tournament and 15th in program history, including six under 15th-year head coach Christi Kelsey.
WC played 10 games against seven teams that made it into the bracket, going 4-6. The Ephs defeated Middlebury (x2), Babson, and Tufts with losses to Ithaca, Wesleyan (x2), Tufts, MIT, and Springfield.
Williams and Salisbury share one common opponent in Bowdoin. The Sea Gulls defeated Bowdoin in five sets on Sept. 9, while the Ephs lost to the Polar Bears in four sets on Sept. 30.
Representing the Ephs on the All-NESCAC First Team are senior outside hitter Celia Adams and senior middle blocker Marit Hoyem, who share the team lead with 248 kills apiece. Adams enters the NCAA Tournament with 2.99 kills per set (.179) and 29 service aces. Hoyem, who was NESCAC Defensive Player of the Year in 2022, is swinging .318 with 2.67 kills per set and has racked up 77 total blocks (16 solo, 0.83 B/S).
Senior setter Lauren Kauppila ranks fourth in the NESCAC with 7.88 assists per set (733 total), while junior libero Sidra Wohlwend leads the team from the back with 416 digs (4.47 D/S).

The Sea Gulls and Ephs are meeting for just the third time after splitting their two previous matchups.
Salisbury defeated Williams 3-1 at home on Sept. 30, 2005, while the Ephs got even with a 3-0 sweep on Sept. 12, 2014, in Boston.
The Ephs will travel 164 miles from their campus in Williamstown, Mass., to Cambridge, while the Sea Gulls have a 435-mile odyssey to get to the Greater Boston suburb.
This is the third NCAA Tournament in which Salisbury and Williams have met across all sports in the calendar year 2023. The Sea Gulls defeated the Ephs twice in the softball regionals in May, and SU field hockey knocked off Williams in the second round this past Saturday (after Williams beat Salisbury in the third round in 2022).

The winner of the Salisbury-Williams matchup will move on to face either eighth-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps or UMass Dartmouth, who will play on Thursday at 2 p.m. That second-round contest is set to begin on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
The winner of the second-round matchup will face either 20th-ranked MIT, Alfred, SUNY Cortland, or Gettysburg in the Regional Finals on Saturday at 5 p.m.
The eight regional champions will advance to the NCAA Championship, beginning with the national quarterfinals on Wednesday, Nov. 29, in Claremont, Calif.

The 2023 Sea Gulls

#2 Julie Altieri | All-C2C Second Team, All-C2C Tournament Team

#7 Grace Rail | All-C2C First Team, C2C Tournament MVP

#20 Kiley McTaggart | All-C2C Second Team

#22 Emma Quandt | All-C2C Tournament Team

#8 Gwen Eustace | All-C2C First Team

#3 Kayla Pedersen | C2C Scholar-Athlete of the Year

Salisbury has made the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year and 11th time in program history. The Sea Gulls are 8-10 all-time in the national tournament.
The Sea Gulls advanced to the second round in 2022, sweeping Endicott in the first round and taking eventual national semifinalist NYU to five sets the next day.
SU's deepest tournament run came in 2012 during their final season under SU Hall-of-Fame head coach Margie Knight. That year the Sea Gulls advanced to the national quarterfinals, ousting Mount Saint Mary (N.Y.), Richard Stockton, and Eastern before falling to Elmhurst in the Elite Eight.
At 20-7, Salisbury has won 20 matches for a second consecutive season. The Sea Gulls have won 20 or more matches 29 times in the 46-year history of the program.
The Sea Gulls have won 13 of their last 15 matches dating back to Sept. 30, beginning with a reverse sweep of Mary Washington. SU boasts four winning streaks of four matches or more in 2023.
Senior libero Grace Rail earned First-Team All-C2C honors for the second straight year, leading the conference in digs per set (5.21) by a runaway margin. Rail also ranked second in total digs (495) and surpassed 1,000 for her career in an Oct. 14 match at Christopher Newport. She was named C2C Tournament MVP after totaling 39 digs in the two matches and severely influencing the way CNU and Mary Washington aimed their attacks.
Sophomore middle blocker Gwen Eustace also landed on the All-C2C First Team. She ranks third in the C2C in hitting percentage (.330), total blocks (99), and blocks per set (1.02).
Freshman setter Julie Altieri (6.45 A/S, 2.11 D/S, 1.7 K/S) and freshman outside hitter Kiley McTaggart (215 kills, 2.13 K/S) each earned spots on the All-C2C Second Team.
Altieri and junior middle blocker Emma Quandt joined Rail on the All-C2C Tournament Team. Altieri totaled 85 assists, 28 digs, eight kills, and six blocks over the two matches, while Quandt went for 22 kills and 11 blocks while swinging .475 at the net.
Junior defensive specialist Kayla Pedersen (2.26 D/S) was recognized as C2C Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Salisbury boasts elite Division III rankings in the following six statistical categories:
Blocks Per set - 2.07 (29th)
Team Total Blocks - 213.0 (37th)
Digs Per Set - 17.61 (59th)
Team Digs - 1,814 (80th)
Opposing Hitting Percentage - .130 (83rd)
Hitting Percentage - .189 (102nd)
Eustace claims a trio of top-65 national rankings, including total blocks (99, 41st), blocks per set (1.02, 48th), and hitting percentage (.330, 63rd).
Rail carries top-80 rankings in digs per set (5.20, 46th) and total digs (494, 80th).
Quandt slots 90th in total blocks (87) and 120th in blocks per set (0.85).
Altieri is a top-200 setter (152nd in total assists, 172nd in A/S) and is one of just 48 players in Division III this season to record a triple-double (Nov. 4 at Catholic: 51 assists, 11 digs, 10 kills).

We are thrilled to have earned an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament. Winning the conference championship was a goal we set for ourselves every year, and now that we have accomplished that, we're ready to move onto our next goal of playing on the national stage. I am so proud of this team for its tenacity, and we're so excited to get to dance again!

Nikki Binetti, Sea Gull Head Volleyball Coach

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The Rundown

The 2023 Sea Gulls

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