Women's Volleyball vs. Wheaton 
NEWMAC Tournament Quarterfinal
Tuesday, November 7 | 7 p.m. 
Staake Gymnasium | Babson Park, Mass. 

SERIES HISTORY
•    Babson is 21-32 all-time against Wheaton in a series that dates back to 1980.
•    The Beavers have dominated the series as of late winning five straight matches and nine of their last 10 against the Lyons since 2013. 
•    The Green and White has won six in a row against Wheaton inside Staake Gymnasium going back to 2009. 

POSTSEASON HISTORY
•    Tuesday's match is the first in the conference playoffs between the teams is just the fourth all-time and the first since 1995 as members of the NEW 8 Conference. 
•    Babson is 1-2 in three previous meetings against Wheaton with its only victory coming back in 1988 when the schools were part of the NEW 6. 

LAST MEETING
•    Junior Lauren Gips led all players with 10 kills and four blocks, classmate Tatum Stelter had 17 digs and senior Ruby Reich finished with 12 assists, a career-high 10 service aces and 10 digs as Babson defeated Wheaton in four sets, 25-17, 25-22, 24-26, 25-15, on September 30 in Norton, Mass. 
•    Senior Erin Gray added eight kills and first-year Zoe Ackerman contributed 18 assists and eight digs for the Beavers, who matched their season high with 15 service aces in the win. 
•    Celina Henn had eight kills, Sydney Lyon added seven kills and five aces and Julianna Flack finished with 20 assists, nine digs and three blocks to lead the Lyons, who hit just .008 in the loss. 

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
•    Second-seeded Babson (23-5) concluded the regular season with a 3-2 loss at Springfield on Saturday afternoon. 
•    Gips finished with 12 kills and seven blocks, first-year Natalie Molendyk provided 11 kills and six blocks and Ackerman doled out 44 assists for the Beavers, who made a season-high 32 attack errors in the loss. 
•    Gray (3.07 k/s) ranks eighth in the conference in kills, Gips is averaging 2.51 kills per set and ranks first in the league in blocks per set (1.26) and second in hitting percentage (.370), and senior Lulu McShane is hitting .267 and contributing 2.22 kills per set. 
•    Ackerman is dishing out 7.24 assists per set, sophomore Roz Cabuena ranks second in the NEWMAC in digs per set (5.21) and Stelter is tied for fourth in the league with 56 service aces and is averaging 2.61 digs per set. 

SCOUTING THE LYONS
•    Seventh-seeded Wheaton (14-13) secured its first NEWMAC Tournament berth since 2019 with a 3-1 win at WPI on Saturday. 
•    Lyon led all players with 19 kills, Julianna Flack dished out 35 assists and Jackie Hochberg finished with 12 digs and eight service aces for the Lyons, who hit .209 in the victory. 
•    Lyon (3.19 k/s, 2.08 d/s) ranks eighth in the conference in kills, Henn (2.84 k/s, 2.37 d/s) is second on the team in both kills and digs and Julia Wingler is averaging 1.46 kills to go along with a team-high 73 total blocks this fall. 
•    Flack is fourth in the league handing out 8.06 assists per set to go along with a NEWMAC-best 70 service aces, while Hochberg is averaging a team-high 3.95 digs per set. 

BEAVERS IN THE POSTSEASON
•    Babson has won its last six NEWMAC Tournament quarterfinal matches and has made eight consecutive conference semifinal appearances going back to 2014. 
•    The Beavers have won four of the last eight NEWMAC titles (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019) and reached the tournament final for the first time since 2019 last season.
•    Prior to claiming the first tournament championship in program history in 2014, the Green and White had not won a conference tournament match since the 1993 NEW 8 quarterfinals. 

CABUENA EARNS CONFERENCE RECOGNITION
•    Following two of the best performances of her career, Cabuena was selected as the NEWMAC Defensive Player of the Week on Monday. 
•    She had a career-high 37 digs in last Wednesday's four-set win over No. 18 MIT and followed it up with 30 digs in the loss at Springfield on Saturday. 
•    For the week, she averaged 7.44 digs per set. 

TOURNAMENT EXPERIENCE
•    In five postseason matches last fall, Gips averaged 3.00 kills and 1.13 blocks per set while hitting at a .300 clip. 
•    McShane (2.42 k/s) was second on the team with 46 kills and hit .256,  while sophomore Isabella Allen averaged 1.76 kills per set. 
•    The quartet of Cabuena (3.63), senior Olivia Leinenweber (2.68), sophomore Sophia Shaw (2.44) and Stelter (1.83) combined to average more than 10 digs per set. 

MOVING UP THE CHARTS
•    Gray ranks 16th in single-season program history with her 276 kills and needs just three more to move into 14th position. 
•    Ackerman's 717 assists rank 12th on the Beavers' single-season list, while Gips has matched her career high with 73 total blocks, which ranks 16th on the program's single-season chart. 
•    Stelter's 151 service aces rank seventh all-time in Babson history and she needs three to pass Angela Price '16 for sixth place.

NUMBERS TO KNOW
•    The Beavers are 10-0 this season and 125-16 during head coach Eric Neely's tenure as head coach inside Staake Gymnasium. 
•    Babson is 22-2 this season when recording more kills than its opponents. 
•    The Green and White is 18-0 when its foes record a hitting percentage of .150 or lower. 
•    The Beavers are 19-2 on the year when totaling more blocks than their opponents. 
•    Babson is 20-2 when winning the first set. 

TICKETS
•    All tickets must be purchased online through the NEWMAC Box Office for all rounds of this year's conference tournament. 
•    Students attending NEWMAC institutions with a valid ID and children under 12 are free and do not need a mobile ticket.

UP NEXT
•    The winner of Tuesday's quarterfinal will face either third-seeded and 18th-ranked MIT or sixth-seeded Emerson in a semifinal on Saturday.