Women's Volleyball at the Greg "Gio" Giovanazzi Memorial Tournament
Friday, August 29 vs. Capital | 7 p.m.
Saturday, August 30 vs. Rowan | 11 a.m. | at No. 4 Johns Hopkins | 5 p.m.
Goldfarb Gymnasium | Baltimore, Md. 

WHAT TO KNOW
•    The Babson women's volleyball team travels to Baltimore, Md., to open the 2025 campaign with three matches at Johns Hopkins.
•    The Beavers face Capital on Friday night before concluding the trip with contests against Rowan and the fourth-ranked Blue Jays on Saturday. 

SERIES HISTORY
vs. Capital: first meeting
vs. Rowan: first meeting
vs. Johns Hopkins: first meeting 

SCOUTING THE BEAVERS
•    Babson returns 12 players from a team that finished 23-7 overall and advanced to the NEWMAC Tournament semifinals for the 10th consecutive season. 
•    Senior Isabella Allen totaled career highs in kills (290) and kills per set (3.09), junior Hailey Fouche averaged 2.21 kills and was second on the team with 53 total blocks, and sophomore Angelina Holm hit .253 and contributed 1.15 kills and 0.71 blocks per set as a rookie. 
•    Junior Zoe Ackerman earned AVCA All-America honorable mention honors after handing out 9.09 assists per set and leading the team with a career-high 64 service aces, senior Sophia Shaw averaged 4.36 digs per set before suffering a season-ending injury in mid-October, and sophomore Sabina Frosk added 2.11 digs per set and 40 service aces in her debut campaign. 

SCOUTING CAPITAL
•    The Comets bring back eight players from a team that dropped its final nine matches to finish the 2024 campaign at 9-17 overall. 
•    Samaree Perkins average 1.79 kills per set and was second on the team with 54 total blocks for Capital, which must replace its top three hitters and its setter from last year's squad. 
•    Kenadee Winters was second on the team with 158 assists and averaged 1.95 digs per set, while Abby Brunner contributed a team-high 5.48 digs per set and tied for the team lead with 41 service aces. 

SCOUTING ROWAN
•    The Profs, who were picked to finish fifth in the NJAC preseason poll, return 13 players from a team that finished 16-14 and advanced to the conference tournament semifinals in 2024. 
•    Jena Kaul averaged 3.24 kills per set on the way to earning All-NJAC second-team accolades, Hutton Cordrey contributed 2.11 kills and 1.48 digs per set, and Ava Best chipped in with 1.64 kills per set to go along with a team-high 50 total blocks. 
•    Vanessa Hutchinson, an All-NJAC honorable mention honoree, led the squad in both digs (497) and digs per set (4.69) and was second with 38 service aces, while Gabriella Cooper contributed 2.08 digs per set as a rookie. 

SCOUTING JOHNS HOPKINS
•    The fourth-ranked Blue Jays bring back nine players from a team that finished 33-3 after advancing to the NCAA Tournament semifinals for the second time in program history last fall. 
•    Reigning Centennial Conference Player of the Year and first-team All-American Simone Adam averaged 3.50 kills per set while hitting .353, Ivy Swafford contributed 2.52 kills per set to go along with a .330 hitting percentage, and Alice Yu chipped in with 1.15 kills and 1.03 blocks per set. 
•    Helena Swaak was second on the team in assists (595) and assists per set (5.00), Nicole Tuszynski averaged 2.70 digs per set, and Siena transfer Grace Wilhelm averaged 2.54 digs per set with the Saints in 2024. 

POLL POSITION
•    Babson, which finished lower than third in the NEWMAC regular season standings for the first time since 2012 last fall, came in third when the league's preseason coaches' poll was released last week. 
•    The Beavers also were one of four NEWMAC squads to receive votes in the AVCA Division III preseason poll along with Smith, which was the highest point getter outside the top 25, eighth-ranked MIT and Springfield, which appeared on two ballots. 

OH SO CLOSE
•    Babson, which made six consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances between 2017 and 2023, narrowly missed last year's championship after finishing just 0.118 points behind Centre (Ky.) in the final NPI rankings.
•    After missing the NCAA Tournament in 2016, the Beavers responded with a 22-win campaign that saw them beat Vassar and Clarkson on the way to advancing to the program's first NCAA Tournament regional final. 

NEELY'S NUMBERS
•    Entering his 15th season at Babson, head coach Eric Neely has averaged more than 23 wins a year since taking charge of the program prior to the 2011 campaign. 
•    He has led the Beavers to at least 22 victories in seven consecutive seasons and 10 times overall in 13 years excluding the 2020 campaign, which was canceled due to the pandemic. 
•    Among active Division III head coaches with at least 10 years of experience, Neely (304-116) ranks 16th with a .724 winning percentage. 

RISING IN THE RECORD BOOKS
•    Allen ranks 12th in Babson history with 658 kills and her 290 kills last year were good for 14th in single-season program history. 
•    After just two seasons, Ackerman already ranks fifth on the Beavers' all-time list with 1,834 assists. 
•    Additionally, Ackerman's 1,020 assists and 9.90 assists per set in 2024 both rank second in Babson single-season annals. 

NUMBERS TO KNOW
•    After defeating Husson in three sets to begin the 2024 campaign, the Beavers have now won their season opener in nine consecutive seasons dating back to 2015.
•    Since the start of the 2023 campaign, Babson has gone 35-0 when recording a hitting percentage of at least .200. 
•    Over the last three seasons, the Beavers are 42-0 when building a two-set lead and 19-1 when winning two of the first three sets. 
•    The Green and White went 20-1 in 2024 when finishing with more kills than its opponents. 

UP NEXT
•    The Beavers welcome Keystone to Babson Park for their home opener on September 6 at 1 p.m.