Tartans to Play for UAA Championship

(ST. LOUIS, Mo.) - The 21st-ranked Carnegie Mellon University volleyball team will play for the University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship after advancing to the finals of the championship tournament following two wins on Friday, November 4 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The Tartans defeated the University of Rochester, 3-0, in the quarterfinals and the University of Chicago, 3-2, in the semifinals.

Sophomore Lauren Mueller (Downingtown, Pa./Downingtown STEM Academy) tallied 11 kills with no errors in the victory against the Yellowjackets while senior Jackie Gibbons (Evanston, Ill./Evanston Township) recorded eight kills. Senior Emily Newton (Manhattan Beach, Calif./Chadwick School) had 28 assists while senior Molly Higgins (Vero Beach, Fla./Vero Beach) picked up 22 digs. Junior Eliza Donohue (Lancaster, Pa./Hempfield) stopped the Yellowjackets attack at the net with five block assists while sophomore Sarah Jurgens (Eagan, Minn./Eagan) had four block assists.

In the semifinal match against Chicago, the Tartans took a 2-0 lead with a 28-26 set-one win and a 25-21 set-two win. Chicago rallied with wins in the third and fourth sets by scores of 25-22 and 25-19 to force the winner-take-all fifth set which the Tartans won 15-11.

In the fifth set, Jurgens tallied four of her 10 kills as Mueller collected the match-winner and tallied a career-best 19 kills for the match. Gibbons put down 18 kills while hitting .516 and Newton registered 54 assists. Higgins collected a career-high 46 digs in the win while Mueller had 21, Newton 20 and freshman Kayla Yew (San Francisco, Calif./Sacred Heart Cathedral) 18.

The Tartans will play for the UAA Championship for the first time since 2001 and third time ever. They fell to Washington University in both those matches but will face eighth-ranked Emory University on Saturday, November 5 at 1:00 pm CT.