Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?... WARRIORS DO!
No. 5 seed stuns Little East tournament field to claim seventh championship
 
KEENE, NH – The fifth-seeded women’svolleyball team completed the most improbable runin the 13-year history of the Little East Conference Tournament by sweeping second-seed Western Connecticut State University to capture its third straight playoff crown Saturday afternoon at Spaulding Gymnasium on the Keene State College campus.
Eastern (11-26) scored only its third three-game sweep of the season, posting a 30-26, 31-29, 30-21 win in the 80-minute battle to end Western’s (19-12) nine-match winning streak and record its seventh title since the advent of the tournament in 1995.
In a five-day span, the Warriors defeated three higher-seeded teams away from home, two in five-game decisions. They tripped up fifth-seeded Rhode Island College Tuesday night in Providence and top-seeded and host Keene Friday night, and the second-seeded Colonials Saturday. 
With the title, the Warriors extend their New England Division III-record total of NCAA tournament appearances to 16 by earning the automatic bid accorded the LEC tournament champion. The NCAA Division III tournament gets underway Thursday with regional play.
During the regular season, Eastern lost four matches to the three teams that it defeated in the playoffs, winning only two of 14 games in those four losses.
In mid-October, the Warriors were in the midst of a program-record ten-match losing streak before ending that string with a five-game home win over Montclair State University Oct. 19. Head coach Jolie Ward saw that victory as the turning point in the season.
“Having the players feel like they could do it on their own was the big change,” said Ward, who has led the Warriors to three LEC titles in five years. “And that Montclair game changed the momentum. And as soon as they got that motivation and the understanding that they could win, they realized that they could accomplish things.”
 Eastern captain Priscilla Dougherty (Island Park, NY) – the team’s only senior – was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Against Western, Dougherty set for 32 assists and added six kills and a .333 attack percentage, eight digs and four aces without committing a service error in 22 tries. In three tournament matches, Dougherty collected 124 assists, 17 kills, 31 digs and five service aces.
The momentum of the championship match swung Eastern’s way midway through the first game, when junior Jen Braswell (Wilton) served straight points – four coming on aces – that carried the Warriors back from an early eight-point (17-9) deficit. Trailing 21-19, Eastern scored seven straight points to surge ahead for good, 26-21. In that run, Dougherty served two aces and sophomore Lindsey Odell (Dover Plains, NY) had two kills.
The Warriors took command of the match by squeezing out the Game 2 victory. The Colonials led by three points in the late stages of the game and had an opportunity for game point with a 29-28 lead. Eastern junior Alexandra Silvestros (North Branford) extended the game, however, with a kill on a Western pass across the net. Dougherty’s tip following junior Sandra Jaque’s (Milford) serve gave the Warriors a 30-29 lead, and a Western attack error gave the Warriors the two-point win.
Eastern never trailed in the decisive game, racing to a 5-0 lead. After Western cut the gap to 9-7, Eastern scored four straight. Jaques tipped a kill in front of the Colonial defense for the first point, Dougherty found the floor with another perfectly-placed kill, and Western committed an attack error for the next point before sophomore Ashley Tuggle (South Windsor) capped the important surge with a service ace to make it 13-7. The lead would never dip below four thereafter.
In the match, Eastern committed only three reception errors and attacked at .149 – 62 percentage points above its season attack percentage.
Sophomore Lauren Odell (Dover Plains, NY) handled 30 passes with just one error, freshman Katie Dinihanian (Stratford) was perfect on 17 attempts, and Jaques was 13-for-14. Lauren Odell also picked up a team-high 22 digs to improve her tournament total to 66, with Jaques adding 11 for a tourney total of 53.
Lindsey Odell, Tuggle and Jaques led Eastern offensively in the tournament. Lindsey Odell topped the Warriors against Western with 12 kills to give her 37 in the tournament; Jaques contributed 11 winners in the final to give her a team-high 40 in the tournament, and Tuggle chipped in nine kills to boost her tournament total of 35. Silvestros added ten critical kills in the final to improve her three-game tournament total to 29.
Sophomore Rebecca Stein and freshman Danielle Spangler had nine kills each to lead the Colonials’ attack. Sophomore Christina Bell and senior Krystal Wilson had 13 and 11 digs, respectively, and freshman Samantha Hathaway finished with 33 assists.
“We had a lot of struggles this year and a lot of ups and downs,” observed Ward, “but the players pulled together. With such a young team, we had a lot of adversity early in the season. I knew that they had the potential to do amazing things as a team, but it had to come from them, they needed to see it. We needed to go through the struggles first, and make adjustments and make changes. And they proved it to themselves.”
Eastern and Western were meeting in the final for the seventh time. The Warriors won in 1997 and 1998 and Western from 1999 through 2002 on the way to five straight championship. Eastern has been in the final 11 times, winning six times (the Warriors also won the initial LEC playoff crown in a round-robin format in 1995).
Eastern Conn. 3, Western Conn. 0
Eastern Conn. (11-26) 30 31 30
Western Conn. (19-12) 26 29 21
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