Women's Volleyball at No. 20 MIT
NEWMAC Tournament Final
Sunday, November 6 | 1 p.m.
Rockwell Cage | Cambridge, Mass.
SERIES HISTORY
• Babson is 8-37 all-time against MIT in a series that dates back to 1982.
• The Beavers have won three of their last four matches against the Engineers since 2018.
• Six of the last seven matches between Babson and MIT have been decided in four or five sets.
POSTSEASON HISTORY
• Babson and MIT have met nine times in the conference playoffs, which includes five matches over the last decade.
• The Beavers are 3-6 all-time in conference tournament play against the Engineers with wins the 2014 final and 2015 and 2018 semifinals.
WHAT'S AT STAKE
• The winner of Sunday's match will earn the NEWMAC's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, while the loser will have to wait to see if it earns an at-large bid when the tournament field is announced on Monday afternoon.
LAST MEETING
• Junior Lauren Gips finished with eight kills and two blocks and graduate student Izzy Seebold contributed 20 assists and two aces as Babson suffered a 3-0 (26-24, 25-11, 25-18) loss to MIT on October 22 in Cambridge, Mass.
• Sophomore Tatum Stelter led all players with 15 digs for the Beavers, who recorded their lowest hitting percentage of the year (.000) in the loss.
• Sophomore Lauren Keller led all players with 12 kills and junior Emily Cheng added 26 assists and six digs for the Engineers, who hit .295 over the final two sets.
SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
• Second-seeded Babson (21-7) advanced to the conference final for the third time since 2018 with a 3-0 win over third-seeded Springfield on Saturday afternoon.
• The trio of senior Martina Jankovic Chin, classmate Lauren MacDonald and junior Lulu McShane combined for 25 kills while hitting .316 for the Beavers, who had five different players record at least seven digs in the victory.
• First-year Isabella Allen ranks fifth in the conference in kills per set (2.81), Gips ranks in the top 10 in the NEWMAC in kills per set (2.66), blocks per set (0.91) and hitting percentage (.314), and Jankovic Chin is averaging 2.40 kills per set and is second on the team with 48 total blocks.
• Seebold is handing out a league-best 10.13 assists per set, while first-year Roz Cabuena ranks fourth in the NEWMAC averaging 4.54 digs per set.
SCOUTING THE ENGINEERS
• Top-seeded and 20th-ranked MIT (23-5) advanced to Sunday's NEWMAC Tournament final with a 3-1 win over fifth-seeded Smith in Saturday's semifinals.
• Junior Consecreta Rozario led all players with 13 kills, senior Lilly Edwards added 12 kills and Cheng dished out 42 assists for the Engineers, who hit .226 on the afternoon.
• Edwards is averaging a team-high 2.75 kills per set, Keller (2.64 k/s) is hitting .279 and ranks third on the team with 48 total blocks, and Rozario is contributing 2.39 kills per set and ranks first in Division III with a .431 hitting percentage.
• Cheng is handing out 10.59 assists per set over her last 13 matches, while sophomore Ottavia Personeni ranks third in the NEWMAC in digs per set (4.67).
THREE-PRONGED ATTACK
• The trio of Jankovic Chin, MacDonald and McShane has combined for 70 kills while hitting a blistering .331 in the Beavers' NEWMAC Tournament wins over Clark and Springfield.
• Jankovic Chin is averaging 4.50 kills per set, MacDonald has contributed 3.29 kills per set and McShane has produced 2.86 kills per game.
POSTSEASON SUCCESS
• Babson, which will make its third championship match appearance over the last four seasons (excluding 2020) on Sunday, has captured four of the last seven NEWMAC Tournament championships (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019).
• The Beavers have gone 15-3 overall in the conference playoffs since 2014 and are 4-0 all-time in conference championship matches.
MAKING MEMORIES IN ROCKWELL CAGE
• The Beavers have claimed two of their four NEWMAC titles at MIT as they defeated the Engineers in five sets to capture the program's first conference championship in 2014 and beat Clark 3-0 in 2015.
• Going back to 2014, the Green and White is 6-2 in the conference playoff matches at MIT.
DOUBLING UP
• Seebold recorded her fifth double-double of the year against Clark and finished with 50 or more assists for the fourth time this season.
• The 55 assists versus the Cougars were the most in a four-set match this season for Seebold, who ranks first on the program's single-season list in assists per set (10.13) and 11th in total assists (729).
STATS WATCH
• Jankovic Chin is averaging 4.40 kills per set while hitting .322 over Babson's last three matches.
• MacDonald set a new career high with her 16 kills in Tuesday's win over Clark, eight of which came in the opening set.
• McShane, who matched her career high with 13 kills in the win over Clark on Tuesday, is averaging 2.82 kills per set and is hitting .282 in three career NEWMAC Tournament matches.
• Cabuena (4.00), first-year Sophia Shaw (3.33) and Stelter (2.33) are three of six players averaging more than two digs per set in the postseason and have combined for 10 service aces in Babson's wins over Clark and Springfield.
• The Beavers have combined for 34 block assists in their first two NEWMAC Tournament matches, which is their most over back-to-back contests since of the 2021 NCAA Tournament when they combined for 34 against Endicott and Juniata.
NUMBERS TO KNOW
• The Beavers are 18-0 when winning the first set on the year.
• Babson is 14-0 on the year and 78-2 since 2018 when hitting .200 or better.
• The Green and White is 18-0 this fall and 62-1 since 2019 when its opponents hit .150 or below this fall.
• Babson is 7-2 on the road this season.
