NAC bracket (PDF file)

Benedictine University's volleyball team - the tri-champion of the 2009 Northern Athletics Conference (NAC) - will be the No. 3 seed for the 2009 NAC volleyball post-season tournament, it has been announced. BU will face Edgewood College, the No. 6 seed, in its first round match on Tuesday (Nov. 3) at 7:00 p.m.

The match will be played at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill., due to facility upgrade construction at Benedictine's Dan and Ada Rice Center.

The Eagles (14-13 overall) shared the NAC regular season title with No. 1 seed Dominican University and No. 2 seed Lakeland College. The winner of the NAC tournament gains the league's automatic bid to the 2009 NCAA Division III national championship tournament.

With a lineup that had just two seniors and three newcomers in the starting rotation, Head Coach Jennifer Wildes' group turned around a slow start to the season - going 2-7 in the first 9 contests - and won seven of its final eight bouts to earn a share of the NAC crown (the school's first league championship in volleyball since 2005).

The one weapon the Eagles did, and will, have on their side entering the NAC tournament is junior returning All-America honorable mention Kayla Leyden. Leyden, an outside hitter, ranks 11th in the nation for kills per game in the latest NCAA III statistics. Currently, she leads BU with a 4.66 k.p.g. average and also is second on the club in digs at 4.04 per set. Leyden has an attack percentage of .236 and also averages 0.47 blocks per set, as well.

Senior Sarah Porod and freshman Miranda Brannen average 1.81 and 1.42 kills per game joining Leyden on the front line. Brannen averages 0.80 blocks per set, while Porod is close behind at 0.73 b.p.s.

Defensively, junior transfer Jackie Rust averages 4.24 digs per game from her libero position. Rust has also been the team's top server by dealing out 31 service aces on the year.

Benedictine's setter tandem of senior Jessica Judge and sophomore Taylor Hoppe have been solid once again in 2009. Judge averages 5.14 assists per set, while Hoppe checks in at 4.02 a.p.s.

In the regular season meeting with Edgewood, Benedictine won in four sets (25-20, 25-16, 21-25, 25-17) on October 9 at the Rice Center. Leyden had 18 kills and 19 digs in that match, while Brannen added seven kills and 11 digs.