Volleyball earns bid to 2008 NESCAC Championship
November 1, 2008

Dokus

Leberman

Billington

Schow
WATERVILLE, Maine -- The Bates College volleyball team dropped a pair of NESCAC matches on Saturday, 3-1 to Middlebury and 3-0 to Williams. But the bigger news was that the Bobcats earned the eighth seed in the conference and will return to the eight-team NESCAC Championship for the first time since 2004.

Bates finished the regular season with a 15-17 overall record and 2-8 in NESCAC play, tying for eighth place with Colby and Trinity. In head-to-head competition, all three of those teams had identical 1-1 records. In set record among tying teams, Bates was 4-3, Colby was 4-4, and Trinity was 3-4. Bates earned the No. 8 seed with the best set record among tying teams. The Bobcats will play at No. 1 seed Tufts on Friday at 5 p.m. in the conference quarterfinals.

Bates started the day with a 3-1 (19-25, 25-16, 25-12, 25-16) loss to Middlebury. First-year Olivia Schow (Costa Mesa, Calif.) had a team-high 12 kills in the match, while junior Liz Leberman (Concord, N.H.) had 8 kills and 8 digs and first-year Grace Haessler (Portland, Ore.) doled out 35 assists.

Bates followed with a 3-0 (25-17, 25-20, 25-10) loss to Williams, despite 6 kills and 19 digs from Leberman. Junior Tess Dokus (Salem, Conn.) had 6 kills and 2 blocks, while senior Beth Billington (St. Paul, Minn.) had 5 kills and 2 blocks and Haessler notched 21 assists.

STATS; Middlebury 3, Bates 1

STATS: Williams 3, Bates 0

2008 VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

Friday, November 7 at Tufts

Quarterfinals
No. 8 Bates at No. 1 Tufts – 5:00 p.m.
No. 7 Bowdoin vs. No. 2 Wesleyan – 5:00 p.m.
No. 6 Connecticut College vs. No. 3 Amherst – 8:00 p.m.
No. 5 Middlebury vs. No. 4 Williams – 8:00 p.m.

Saturday, November 8 at Tufts
Semifinals
Center Court:  Winner of No.1/No. 8 vs. Winner of No. 4/No. 5 – 1:00 p.m.
Center Court:  Winner of No. 2/No. 7 vs. Winner of No. 3/No. 6 – 3:30 p.m.

Sunday, November 9 at Tufts
Championship – 12:00 p.m.