Women's Volleyball 10/25/2018 11:30:00 AM By Mike Miranto, Sr. Associate A.D. for External Operations & Communications Regionally-Ranked Wildcats Look To Clinch ECC Tourney Bid This Weekend Calling all @daemencollege students! We invite you to wear your best Halloween costume to @DaemenWVB's Halloween Bash this Friday during their match vs. Queens! Prizes will be awarded, t-shirts will be given out, it will be epic! @DaemenLife @DaemenResLife pic.twitter.com/HrlKBWcTAZ — Daemen Wildcats (@DaemenAthletics) October 25, 2018 Saturday's @DaemenWVB match will feature a Halloween costume contest for children. Bring your kids out for some exciting NCAA Division II volleyball and trick-or-treat with us! pic.twitter.com/I3RnA0sLBY — Daemen Wildcats (@DaemenAthletics) October 25, 2018 GAME INFORMATION & LINKS Game #26 Daemen Wildcats (15-10, 9-1 ECC) vs. Queens Knights (1-20, 0-10 ECC) Friday, Oct. 26 | 6 p.m. Amherst, N.Y. | Lumsden Gymnasium LIVE STATS LIVE VIDEO Game #27 Daemen Wildcats (15-10, 9-1 ECC) vs. Molloy Lions (16-6, 8-2 ECC) Saturday, Oct. 27 | 1 p.m. Amherst, N.Y. | Lumsden Gymnasium LIVE STATS LIVE VIDEO THE SERVE Daemen looks to remain atop the East Coast Conference standings when hosting a pair of matches this weekend as Queens and Molloy invade Lumsden Gymnasium. The Wildcats can clinch a berth to the upcoming ECC Championships with their next victory; it would the program's second conference tournament berth in the last three seasons. The Wildcats are coming off a 3-2 road loss at NYIT this past Sunday; the defeat snapped the Wildcats' nine-match ECC winning streak. Queens comes to town looking for their first conference win of the season. Saturday's match will feature a showdown between the top two teams in the standings as Daemen and Molloy jockey for the right to host the conference tournament as the No. 1 seed. SUPER STEPH Stephanie Albano enters her third season as Daemen's head coach in 2018. She was promoted to the position in 2016 after serving one season as the team's associate head coach. In her first two seasons at the helm, Albano led the program to a 36-24 overall record and a 20-8 mark in ECC play. In 2016, she was named the East Coast Conference and NCAA Division II East Region Coach of the Year after leading Daemen to the ECC regular season championship. That season also saw Daemen host both the ECC and NCAA Division II East Regional tournaments with the Wildcats advancing to the finals of each. Albano was also selected as one of the American Volleyball Coaches Association 30 Under 30 award recipients in the spring of 2017. REGIONAL REPORT Daemen is ranked No. 7 is the first NCAA Division II East Region poll of the 2018 season which was released earlier this week. It's Daemen's first appearance in the regional rankings since a two-week stint at No. 1 near the end of the 2016 regular season. The East Region of NCAA Division II is comprised of teams from the East Coast Conference, Northeast-10 Conference and Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference, and the regional rankings are used to determine at-large bids and seeds for the East Regional portion of the NCAA Tournament following the respective conference tournaments next month. BALANCED ATTACK The Wildcats have put together arguably the most balanced offensive attack among all ECC teams so far this season. Six players are presently averaging better than 2.0 kills per set - Tirzah Peters (2.73), Meghan Ballou (2.66), Cristina Apostol (2.51), Jenn Heritz (2.49), Sam Logan (2.32) and Allison Post (2.21). Five of the six players rank in the top 15 in the league, while Peters and Ballou also rank in the top 10. Only defending ECC champion Molloy and Bridgeport boast as many as four players averaging better than 2.0 kills per set. As a team, Daemen leads the league and ranks 56th nationally by averaging 13.35 kills per set. BALLING BALLOU Junior middle/outside hitter Meghan Ballou had her most productive week of the season from Sept. 10-16, averaging a team-best 3.58 kills per set over three matches which earned her ECC Player of the Week honors. Ballou, a second team All-ECC selection last season, opened the week with 12 kills on 28 attempts in a win over Roberts Wesleyan, and she followed up with a season-high 17 kills in a five-set loss to Urbana, two shy of her career-best effort. She ended the week with 14 kills in a win over Franklin Pierce. The production came at a critical time as the Wildcats were coping with the loss of Jenn Heritz who was out with an injury. Ballou has reached double figure kills in 10 of the last 14 matches. For the season, Ballou ranks among the league leaders in total kills (221 - 8th), total attacks (647 - 5th) and kills per set (2.66 - 8th). STRONG UP THE MIDDLE Sophomore Tirzah Peters and junior Cristina Apostol have combined to give Daemen one of the strongest middle hitter combinations in the ECC this season. Peters has made an early case to be considered the ECC's most improved player after being slowed by injuries as a freshman which resulted in just 16 matches played. Peters has been a consistent force in 2018, and she presently ranks among the league leaders in total kills (232 - 6th) and kills per set (2.73 - 7th). Her .300 hitting percentage leads the team and ranks fourth in the conference; she and Molloy's Kacey Affrunti are the only players to rank in the league's top 10 in kills per set with a .300 hitting percentage or better. Peters has reached double figure kills in 13 matches this season, including a career-high 15 in a win over defending Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference champion Caldwell on Sept. 9. She was named the ECC Player of the Week for Sept. 3-9 after averaging 3.73 kills per set on a .577 hitting percentage over four matches. Apostol is producing 2.51 kills on a .267 hitting percentage, and she leads the team with 45 blocks. She ranks among the league leaders in the total kills (198 - 9th), kills per set (12th), hitting percentage (8th), and total blocks (10th). ISA'S IMMEDIATE IMPACT Setter Isa McCaffrey has made an immediate impact in her freshman season. The 5-foot-8 Ohio native has racked up 957 assists, a total which presently leads the ECC and ranks 31st nationally. McCaffrey (10.75 assists/set) and Molloy's Sophia Smith (10.21) are the only players in the league to be averaging better than 10.0 assists per set, and McCaffrey ranks 32nd nationally in that category. She is on to pace to be the first Daemen player with more than 1,000 assists since Bailey Dolegowski in 2016, and the first Daemen player to average better than 10.0 assists per set for an entire season since Kristie Martzolf (11.99) in 2004. McCaffrey has garnered honors from the ECC six times this season. She was named the ECC Rookie of the Week for Aug. 27-Sept. 2 and again for Oct. 1-7. She has also been named the ECC Setter of the Week for Sept. 3-9, Sept. 10-16, Sept. 17-23 and Sept. 24-30. BERNARD BATTLES BACK After missing the entire 2017 season with an injury that threatened to end her career, redshirt junior Courtney Bernard has battled her way back into the lineup in 2018. Bernard, who hit .343 and averaged 2.32 kills per set in 2016, has appeared in 24 of the team's 25 matches while making 11 starts so far this season. She's hitting .258 and contributing 1.70 kills per set. Bernard notched a season-high 12 kills in Daemen's 3-1 win over Roberts Wesleyan on Oct. 12. GET DEFENSIVE A trio of experienced defensive specialists have played an important role for the Wildcats this season. Kailey Ballou, Ali Greenwood and Georgia Wicker lead a Wildcat defense that presently ranks third in the ECC by averaging 16.87 digs per set. Ballou, the team's lone senior, is closing in on reaching 900 digs for her career (874 presently). Both Greenwood and Wicker have spent time as the Wildcats' primary libero. Greenwood leads the team and ranks fifth in the league with her 4.24 digs-per-set average, while Wicker is contributing 3.00 digs per set. Greenwood posted a career-high 33 digs in the Wildcats' five-set loss to NYIT on Oct. 21. POSTING UP Sophomore outside hitter Allison Post has really come on of late and is playing the best volleyball of her career to date. Over a five-match stretch from Sept. 21-29, Post recorded her first matches with double figure kills (10 vs. LIU Post on Sept. 22) and double figure digs (11 vs. New Haven on Sept. 23), as well as her first double-double (13 kills, 15 digs vs. Molloy on Sept. 29). The California native established new career-highs in both kills and digs in the win over defending ECC champion Molloy. In that recent stretch, Post averaged 2.69 kills and 2.94 digs per set, while attacking at a .197 clip. She went on to record a career-high 22 kills in the Wildcats' five-set loss to NYIT on Oct. 21. COMING OF AGE Freshman outside hitter Sam Logan is averaging 2.52 kills over the last seven matches. She has totaled at last eight kills in six of those outings. The stretch started with a nine-kill, nine-dig performance in a 3-0 win over Queens on Sept. 30. She followed that up with nine kills and 15 digs in a 3-1 win over Bridgeport on Oct. 5. Logan went on to total 10 kills in a loss to Le Moyne on Oct. 9, marking her sixth match this season with double-figure kills, and had back-to-back nine-kill outings at LIU Post (Oct. 20) and NYIT (Oct. 21). For the season, Logan is producing 2.32 kills and 2.49 digs per set. Her 179 total kills ranks 15th in the conference, and first among all freshmen in the league.