SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – A challenging regular season ended on Saturday with the Endicott women's volleyball team scoring an upset win over Western New England, who previous sat atop the CCC standings, to shake up the conference standings heading into the playoffs. The Gulls grinded out a 15-13 fifth set win to take the match 3-2 (25-23, 21-25, 25-21, 20-25, 15-13) over the Golden Bears and go into CCC Tournament action 12-19 (6-2 CCC).
The official announcement of the playoff seeding will come later on Saturday evening, but Endicott is expected to host either a CCC Quarterfinal match on Tuesday, October 30th or a CCC Semifinal match on Thursday, November 1st at MacDonald Gymnasium.
Junior outside hitter Callie Dolan (Westford, Mass.) exploded for 18 kills on 45 attempts with a .244 hitting percentage to lead the Endicott offensive attack. Middles Hannah Dahlgren (Queensbury, N.Y.) and Mackenzie Guerre (Carlsbad, Calif.) joined Dolan in double digit kills with 11 and 10, respectively with outside hitter Jackie Cone (Salem, N.H.) adding nine more against the Golden Bears.
Freshman setter Alleigh VandeMerkt (Riverside, Ill.) dished out 41 assists in the win to six different hitters.
Defensively, the Blue and Green were paced by senior libero and number two on Endicott's all-time leaders for digs Ashley Norley (Sudbury, Mass.) who totaled 20 digs with two aces in the match. Teammate Gillian Kucharski (Avon, Conn.) added 10 digs as both her and Norley countered Western New England's attack.
Endicott managed six team blocks in the match with Dahlgren leading with a solo block and an assisted block.