Women's Volleyball vs. Springfield
NEWMAC Tournament Semifinal
Saturday, November 15 | 3:30 p.m.
Rockwell Cage | Cambridge, Mass. 

SERIES HISTORY
•    Babson is 10-21 all-time against Springfield in a series that dates back to 1998.
•    The Beavers snapped a two-match losing streak in the series last Saturday and have won eight of the last 12 contests between the teams going back to 2017. 
•    Prior to the teams trading regular season road sweeps over the last two seasons, eight of the previous 10 matches Babson and the Pride were decided in either four or five sets. 

POSTSEASON HISTORY
•    Babson and Springfield will meet for the first time since 2022 and fifth time overall in the conference tournament on Saturday afternoon. 
•    The Beavers are 3-1 against the Pride in the league playoffs, which includes a 3-0 semifinal victory in Cambridge in 2022 and four-set wins in the 2017 NEWMAC quarterfinals and 2018 conference championship match. 
•    Springfield's only win over Babson in the postseason was a five-set triumph in the 2021 semifinals. 

LAST MEETING
•    Senior Isabella Allen led all players with 13 kills, first-year Devon Burke added a season-high 11 kills and Babson swept the Pride, 25-20, 25-17, 25-22, in last Saturday's regular season finale in Springfield, Mass. 
•    First-year Ailsa Munro recorded four blocks, junior Zoe Ackerman finished with 25 assists, eight digs, four kills and three blocks, and senior Sophia Shaw led all players with 13 digs for the Beavers, who ended the day with a .298 hitting percentage. 
•    Emily Keaveney recorded 11 kills and 10 digs, Ahunna James added eight kills and Tori Colosimo handed out 29 assists to go along with a team-high 11 digs for the Pride, which made its most attack errors (21) in a three-set match this fall. 

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
•    Second-seeded Babson (21-6) has won three straight and seven of its last nine matches after defeating seventh-seeded Mount Holyoke, 3-1, in Tuesday's NEWMAC quarterfinals. 
•    First-year Liberty May registered 14 kills, sophomore Angelina Holm had 13 kills and four blocks, and Ackerman contributed 47 assists, seven digs, four kills, three aces and two blocks for the Beavers, who made just five attack errors over the first two sets and hit .347 in the match. 
•    Allen is averaging a team-high 2.68 kills per set and is hitting .231 on the season and .259 over her last 10 matches, junior Hailey Fouche is contributing 2.28 kills per set and Holm (2.11 k/s, 0.81 b/s) ranks fourth in the conference with a .350 hitting percentage. 
•    Munro ranks fourth in the NEWMAC in blocks per set (0.94), Ackerman is second in the league in both assists per set (8.91) and service aces (65), and Shaw ranks fifth in the conference averaging 3.91 digs per set. 

SCOUTING THE PRIDE
•    Third-seeded Springfield (23-6) eased past sixth-seeded Emerson 3-0 (25-18, 25-21, 25-13) on Tuesday night to advance to the NEWMAC Tournament semifinals for the fifth consecutive season. 
•    Keaveney led all players with 10 kills and three service aces, Jodi Saelua had nine kills and a match-high six blocks, and Colosimo contributed 31 assists and 12 digs for the Pride, which finished with a .333 hitting percentage in the victory. 
•    Saelua is averaging a team-high 2.29 kills per set and ranks second in the conference in both hitting percentage (.364) and blocks per set (1.01), Keaveney is contributing 2.28 kills and 2.62 digs per set, and James is averaging 2.05 kills and 2.28 digs per set. 
•    Aubrey Hughes is tied with James for second on the team with 67 total blocks, Colosimo ranks third in the NEWMAC in assists per set (8.75) and Olivia Nealy is averaging a team-high 3.67 digs per set. 

WHAT'S AT STAKE
•    Babson is looking to punch its ticket to the NEWMAC Tournament final for the first time since 2022, while Springfield is seeking a second conference championship match appearance in three seasons on Saturday. 
•    In addition to the conference tournament implications, both squads are looking to position themselves for a potential NCAA Tournament at-large bid should they fail to capture a NEWMAC title. 
•    As of Thursday morning, the Beavers are 26th in the NPI and in good position to receive one of 21 at-large bids should it need one, while the Pride sits firmly on the bubble at No. 36. 
•    The final at-large team to qualify for last year's NCAA Tournament was ranked 39th with Babson owing the distinction of the first squad out of the 64-team field at No. 41. 

POSTSEASON SUCCESS
•    Babson has won nine consecutive NEWMAC Tournament quarterfinal matches and will play in its 11th consecutive conference semifinal since 2014 on Saturday. 
•    Babson is 5-5 in the NEWMAC semifinals and has captured four NEWMAC championships (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019) since 2014. 
•    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.

20 AND 10
•    With Saturday's win at Springfield, Babson finished the regular season with 10 NEWMAC victories for the first time in program history. 
•    The Beavers had previously finished 9-1 in 2014, 2019 and 2021, and went 9-2 in 2023. 
•    The Green and White has now concluded the regular season with at least nine conference victories and 20 wins overall in the regular season four times since 2014 (2014, 2019, 2021, 2025). 

900 CLUB
•    With 13 kills in last Saturday's victory, Allen became just the sixth player in Babson history to surpass 900 for her career. 
•    She passed Lorraine Mackiewicz '17 on Saturday for fifth place on the all-time kills list with 905, and also ranks 10th on the Beavers' career points list with 946.0. 

SINGLE-SEASON SUPERLATIVES
•    Ackerman's 918 assists rank eighth on the program's single-season list and she joins Kathleen Lynch '13 and Elizabeth Cameron '20 as the only setters in school history to surpass 900 assists in multiple seasons. 
•    Munro's 85 total blocks are currently 10th on the Beavers' single-season chart and she needs just five more to become the sixth player in program history with 90 or more blocks in a season.
•    Shaw's 383 digs rank 12th in in single-season program history and she needs just six to move into the top 10 and 17 to become the 10th player in school annals to surpass 400 digs in a season. 

TRENDS TO WATCH
•    Over the last five matches, Holm is averaging 2.65 kills per set while hitting. 420.
•    Shaw has finished with at least 12 digs in 14 straight contests and is averaging 4.27 digs per set during this stretch. 
•    Munro has 57 total blocks over the last 14 matches and is averaging 1.19 blocks per set during this time.
•    First-year Misaki Harte has at least one service ace in seven of the last eight matches and has finished with two or more aces in 10 of the last 15 contests. 
•    Fouche has recorded nine or more kills in five of the last eight matches and in 14 outings since October 4 is averaging 2.59 kills and 0.80 blocks per set while hitting .231. 
•    Allen has finished with at least eight kills in nine of her last 11 outings. 
•    May has recorded double-digit kills six times this fall and her 14 against Mount Holyoke are the most since finishing with a season-high 22 kills in a five-set triumph at Smith on September 27.
•    Sophomore Sabina Frosk has finished with at least seven digs in 11 of the Beavers' last 13 matches going back to October 10. 

NUMBERS TO KNOW
•    The Beavers are 6-4 in NEWMAC Tournament matches played at MIT going back to 2014. 
•    Babson has won 52 straight contests when hitting .200 or better over the last three seasons, which includes a 17-0 mark this fall.
•    The Green and White is 20-3 on the year when winning the opening set. 
•    The Beavers are 13-1 on the year when recording at least 10 service aces. 

UP NEXT
•    The winner of Saturday's semifinal will face either top-seeded MIT or fifth-seeded Coast Guard in Sunday's 1 p.m. final.