Fourth-seeded Binghamton University ended its season on Saturday, dropping a 3-1 heartbreaker to No. 1 Stony Brook on Long Island in the America East semifinals. Graduate student Jackie Ahlers and senior Morgan Sweany each tallied 19 kills for the Seawolves, who beat the Bearcats in all three of their meetings this season, including this 23-30, 30-21, 30-24, 30-27 win. Ahlers totaled 70 kills between the teams’ three matchups.
‘It’s hard to stop a hitter like that,’ said BU head coach Glenn Kiriyama. ‘You can stop her now and then, but she’s going to get her kills. She’s that dominating of a hitter. She can hit angles that some of the other hitters can’t quite hit.’
Senior Kathleen Schauer finished her final match with a team-high 12 kills and a .273 hitting percentage, earning a spot on the All-America East Championship team. Classmate and fellow Colorado native Jacki Kane finished the match with four blocks, leaving her two shy of the school’s all-time record of 613, but adding to her single-season record of 186 blocks, despite being heavily scouted all year. As of the last available report, Kane was 11th in the NCAAs with 1.57 blocks per game.
‘It was nice to be No. 1 in the D-I era,’ she said. ‘I wish I got a couple more blocks, but I did my best and I hope that some punk comes and knocks off my record.’
An emotional Kane said that playing alongside Schauer has made her four years here, plus two years in high school, particularly special.
‘Every time Kathleen and I were front row together this season, I smiled,’ Kane said. ‘I don’t know how many people can say that they’ve played volleyball with their best friend for six years. ‘ She was there to celebrate with me when we won in 2005, and she hugged me and we cried in each others arms when we lost this year. It’s incredible all that we’ve gone through together.’
But the match certainly was not a foregone conclusion. The Bearcats roared out to capture game one, 30-23, silencing a sizable SBU crowd.
‘Obviously we were pretty confident after that first game,’ Kiriyama said. ‘We knew it was going to be a battle. The way we won was pretty convincing, but I thought their hitters were making a lot of errors. We were capitalizing the best we could.’
But momentum swung Stony Brook’s direction in game two. Freshman Michelle McDonough, a member of the league’s All-Rookie Team, began to struggle ‘ she would finish with nine attack errors.
Freshman Lindsey Mueller ‘ another All-Rookie selection ‘ sprained her ankle in the middle of game three, and although she fought through the pain, the Bearcats slipped a bit, picking up a disastrous nine service errors in the game. Kane called Mueller a ‘warrior’ for fighting through the injury.
‘That girl is seriously what every athlete should strive to be,’ Kane said. ‘She’s going to start a new legacy [here].’
With a hobbled Mueller back on the court, the Bearcats staged a furious comeback to tie game four at 26 before Stony Brook reeled off three straight points.
At 29-27, the Bearcats went to their bread-and-butter play ‘ a short set to Kane, a play that has worked hundreds of times.
But it didn’t this time and the Seawolves picked up the match-clinching block in the center of the court. Kiriyama said it was an on-court call, not given from the sideline.
‘That was up to Lindsey,’ Kiriyama said. ‘It just didn’t work for us that time ‘ it’s worked many times for us before. We just rolled the dice ‘ we went with our strength.’
But now, the Bearcats’ strength will be their underclassmen. McDonough and Mueller will return next season to lead a promising squad that will feature seniors Jackie Strader and Ashley Allen, as well as Sandra Devito, Brianna Strong and Katie Thomas.
‘The girls are going to continue the legacy when we leave,’ Kane said. ‘The juniors will be amazing leaders, and the younger girls have so much talent. When they get the experience they will seriously destroy people.’
‘I haven’t really given it a lot of thought [yet],’ Kiriyama said Monday afternoon. ‘I think it will be a tight race again next year. Jacki and Kathleen have been instrumental in getting our program where it’s at, which is probably the strongest it’s been since I’ve been here.’
Danes win title: After defeating No. 2 UNH 3-1 in Saturday’s second semifinal, third-seeded Albany defeated host Stony Brook, 3-1, to win the America East championship and its automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday afternoon. BU head coach Glenn Kiriyama said he wasn’t surprised by the result.
‘I think Albany’s just got a lot of experience on their side,’ he said. ‘They’ve hosted the tournament before, they know what to expect. We played them twice this year, we know that they’re a really strong team. [The result] didn’t really surprise me that much.’
The title is Albany’s third in the past four years, with the Bearcats holding the 2005 crown. The Danes will learn their seed in the NCAA Tournament live on the annual selection show on Nov. 25.