CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For the second-straight season, the road to the America East volleyball title will go through Durham, New Hampshire, as the University of New Hampshire Wildcats captured the America East regular-season title and the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament. The full 2014 America East Championship bracket was announced Sunday afternoon following the final matches of the regular-season.
The 2014 championship begins with the semifinals on Friday, November 21, with the championship game on Saturday, November 22. Joining top-seed New Hampshire in the field is No. 2 Binghamton, No. 3 Albany and No. 4 Stony Brook. Binghamton and Albany will play the opening game of the tournament on Friday at 3 p.m., followed by host New Hampshire against Stony Brook at 6 p.m. The semifinal winners will play the 2014 title match on Saturday, November 22 at 2 p.m. All matches will be played at the University of New Hampshire’s Lundholm Gymnasium.
New Hampshire (11-1) clinched its second-straight America East regular-season title and fifth overall with a straight-set win over Stony Brook on Thursday night. The 11-1 mark is the team’s best record in league play since 2002 and tied the program’s second-best conference winning percentage. UNH has won four conference tournament titles and all four have come at Lundholm Gymnasium including last season. The Wildcats are making their fourth-straight trip to the tournament and fifth in the last six years. The regular-season champion has repeated as tournament champion 15 times in 22 years.
For the second-straight year, we had a three-way tie at second place to decide the No. 2-4 seeds as Albany, Binghamton and Stony Brook all finished with 7-5 records. Binghamton came out as the No. 2 seed with a 3-1 record vs. Stony Brook and Albany.
Albany then won the head-to-head tiebreak with Stony Brook – a tiebreak that came down to points won vs. each other in head-to-head matches as the team’s split regular-season contests (1-1) and sets played (4-4). This gave Albany the No. 3 seed and Stony Brook the No. 4 seed.
Binghamton (7-5) clinched a spot with a straight-set win over UMBC on Friday night. The Bearcats have qualified for the America East Championship for the ninth time in 11 years since joining the conference in 2004. Although they missed the tournament in 2013, the Bearcats won the title as the No. 2 seed in 2012 and have won three conference tournament titles in program history, all coming on the road.
Albany (7-5) clinched a spot in the tournament following UMBC’s loss to Binghamton on Friday night and then moved into the No. 3 seed with a win over the Retrievers on Sunday afternoon. The Great Danes are making their America East record 13th-straight appearance in the conference championship. The Great Danes had a string of winning either the regular-season or tournament title in nine-straight years snapped a year ago after falling in the semifinals to UMBC.
Stony Brook (7-5) earned its fourth trip to the America East tournament in five years, clinching a spot a week ago with wins over SUNY rivals Binghamton and Albany. The Seawolves are looking for their first tournament title.
Visit America East’s Championship Central throughout the tournament for previews, links to in-game coverage and postgame reaction. The 2014 championship game will be available exclusively on AmericaEast.TV and produced by Pack Network.
2014 America East Volleyball Championship
Semifinals - Friday, November 21
Match 1 - No. 2 Binghamton vs. No. 3 Albany - 3 p.m.
Match 2 - No. 1 New Hampshire vs. No. 4 Stony Brook - 6 p.m.
Final - Saturday, November 22
Winner Match 1 vs. Winner Match 2 - 2 p.m.