2024 NCAA Volleyball Tournament Preview

By Will DeBoer

11/20/2024 11:00:00 AM

The Rundown

Polishing up its dancing shoes for the third consecutive year, the Salisbury University volleyball team is headed to the Keystone State for the 2024 NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament. The Sea Gulls will open the bracket against the Middlebury Panthers in the first round on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. inside the Kennedy Sports and Recreation Center on the campus of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa.

The #D3vb women's bracket is out????

?? https://t.co/KTqKdmzZiR #WhyD3 pic.twitter.com/MOqJkFp8DJ
— NCAA Division III (@NCAADIII) November 18, 2024

Live Video (All Matches)

Live Stats (First Match)

Tournament Homepage

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

Salisbury went 24-6 under third-year head coach Nikki Binetti and earned one of 21 at-large bids into the NCAA Tournament.
- SU was ranked 18th in the season's final NCAA Power Index (NPI), eighth-best among teams that received at-large berths.
The top-seeded Sea Gulls advanced to the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference (C2C) Tournament finals for the fourth straight year. SU defeated fourth-seeded Mary Washington 3-1 in the semifinals before dropping a 3-2 heartbreaker to second-seeded hosts Christopher Newport in the championship.
- CNU earned the league's automatic bid and was the only other C2C school to make the 64-team field.
Salisbury played 13 of its 30 matches this season against 11 teams that made the NCAA Tournament, going 8-5.
- The Sea Gulls defeated Gallaudet, Marymount (Va.), Christopher Newport, NYU, Stevens, William Paterson, Messiah, and Virginia Wesleyan.
- SU suffered defeats against Carnegie Mellon, Washington & Lee, Gettysburg, and CNU (x2).

Middlebury College earned the automatic bid out of the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC). The Panthers went 16-10 in the regular season and 7-3 in league play, securing the two-seed in the NESCAC Tournament and bouncing top-seeded Colby in five sets to win their sixth league title.
The Panthers are playing in their third national tournament in the past four years and eighth overall under 30th-year head coach Sarah Raunecker.
MC played nine of 26 games against eight teams that made it into the bracket, going 3-6.
- The Panthers defeated Gallaudet, UMass Dartmouth, and Colby with losses to Ithaca, St. John Fisher, Smith, Colby, MIT, and Springfield.
Middlebury and Salisbury share one common opponent in Gallaudet. The Sea Gulls topped Gallaudet in four sets on Sept. 7, while the Panthers needed just three sets to take down the Bison on Sept. 14.
The Panthers rank 46th nationally in digs per set with a NESCAC-best 18.05. MC also boasts top-75 national marks in total blocks (192.0), blocks per set (1.90), and team attacks per set (38.50).
- Sophomore right side Molly Harrison leads the NESCAC in kills (379) and kills per set (3.75) while posting 19 kill-dig double-doubles.
- Senior setter Gabbie O'Toole paces the NESCAC in assists (955) and assists per set (9.55).
- Freshman libero Annabella Rando has chased down 4.72 digs per set, good for second in the NESCAC.

The Sea Gulls and Panthers are meeting for just the third time overall and the first time in a decade.
Salisbury has won both previous matchups, sweeping neutral-site contests on Sept. 29, 2001 and Sept. 13, 2014.
The Panthers will travel the longest distance of any team at the Juniata regional, busing 475 miles from their campus in Middlebury, Vt. The Sea Gulls will motor a mere 260 miles from Salisbury to Huntingdon.
Salisbury and Middlebury are on track to face each other in Division III postseason play in three different sports during the 2024 calendar year.
- The Panthers defeated the Sea Gulls 16-5 in the women’s lacrosse national championship game on May 26.
- On Friday afternoon, the teams are set to meet in the field hockey national semifinals in Lexington, Va.

The winner of the Salisbury-Middlebury matchup will move on to face either 25th-ranked Gettysburg or Manhattanville, who will play on Thursday at 2 p.m. That second-round Regional Semifinal contest is set to begin on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
The winner of the second-round matchup will face either top-ranked Juniata, Penn State Altoona, Virginia Wesleyan, or Springfield 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, Dec. 4, in Salem, Va.

Julie Altieri & Volleyball Team, 8-31-24

The 2024 Sea Gulls

#2 Julie Altieri | All-C2C First Team

#8 Gwen Eustace | All-C2C First Team, C2C All-Tournament Team

#20 Kiley McTaggart | All-C2C First Team, C2C All-Tournament Team

#12 Natalie Uibel | C2C Top Five in SA/S, Digs, D/S

#7 Grace Rail | All-C2C Second Team

#22 Emma Quandt | All-C2C Second Team

Salisbury has made the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year and 12th time in program history. The Sea Gulls are 9-11 all-time in the national tournament.
The Sea Gulls advanced to the second round in each of the past two seasons.
In 2022, SU swept Endicott in the first round and took national semifinalist NYU to five sets in round two.
In 2023, SU pulled off a five-set reverse sweep of Williams in round one before making a second-round exit against semifinalist Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
Salisbury has advanced past the second round twice, making the regional finals (third round) in 2009 and advancing to the national quarterfinals (fourth round) in 2012.
At 24-6, Salisbury has won 20 matches for a third consecutive season and secured their most victories in one campaign since 2015. The Sea Gulls have won 20 or more matches 30 times in the 47-year history of the program.
The Sea Gulls won seven straight bouts to open the season and put together a 14-match winning streak from Sept. 14 through Oct. 26, the program's longest since 2012.
Junior middle blocker Gwen Eustace was named C2C Defensive Player of the Year after leading the league in blocks per set (1.10) and ranking second in total blocks (112). She becomes the fourth Sea Gull out of five (since 2019) win the conference’s top defensive award. Eustace also led the league in hitting percentage (.390) and ranks second in points (390.5) and points per set (3.83).
Fifth-year senior defensive specialist/libero Grace Rail is wrapping up one of the best defensive careers in Sea Gull history, currently ranking seventh in the program in career digs (1,718). Rail is a three-time All-C2C honoree, has won C2C Defensive Player of the Week nine times in the past three seasons, and was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2022.
Sophomore setter Julie Altieri has provided a steady hand for her attackers all season long. Her 1,012 assists mark just the ninth time an SU setter has eclipsed 1,000 single-season assists. Through just two seasons, Altieri already ranks sixth in program history in career assists (1,706).
Sophomore right side Kiley McTaggart enjoyed a breakout season en route to First-Team All-C2C honors, ranking top-five in the league league in kills (316), kills per set (2.98), points (360.0), and hitting percentage (.299).
Team - 12th in B/S (2.34), 18th in total blocks (250.0), 33rd in opp. hitting percentage (.112), 42nd in hitting percentage (.222), 43rd in K/S (12.86), 48th in A/S (11.92), 49th in D/S (18.01)
Julie Altieri - 29th in assists (1,012), 31st in triple-doubles (1), 36th in A/S (9.46)
Gwen Eustace - 12th in hitting percentage (.390), 22nd in blocks (112), 27th in B/S (1.10)
Kiley McTaggart - 131st in hitting percentage (.299)
Emma Quandt - 73rd in blocks (94), 77th in B/S (0.94), 84th in hitting percentage (.317)
Grace Rail - 54th in digs (518), 91st in D/S
Natalie Uibel - 186th in service aces (50)

We are grateful to receive an at-large bid into the Big Dance. Getting back to the NCAA Tournament has been a goal of ours from the start of the season, and to see it come to fruition yet again is so exciting for our program. It's always rewarding to see hard work pay off, but the job is not done yet, and we're ready to make some waves at the Juniata Regional.

Nikki Binetti, Sea Gull Head Volleyball Coach

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Ticket and Venue Information

The Rundown

The 2024 Sea Gulls

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