Box Score LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. – The Fairfield University volleyball team won the 2015 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship with a 3-1 win over Marist on Sunday at Siena's Alumni Recreation Center. Megan Theiller was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Championship after racking up a career-high 22 kills this afternoon.
The MAAC Championship is the eighth for the Stags, who will also advance to the NCAA Championship for the eighth time in program history. Also the regular season champion of the MAAC, Fairfield enters the national postseason with a record of 21-9 and riding a 12-match winning streak.
The Stags won the match by set scores of 26-24, 25-19, 19-25 and 25-23. Fairfield erased a 21-16 deficit in the fourth set en route to the 2015 crown.
"I'm not sure that words can capture how proud I am of this team," said Head Coach Todd Kress, who was named the MAAC Coach of the Year this week for a conference-record fourth time. "At the beginning of October, people questioned if we would even qualify of the postseason, and here we are seven weeks later as MAAC Champions.
"The entire season, this group has had championship potential," continued Kress, who also led the Stags to the MAAC Championship in 1997 and 1998. "But today they combined that potential with an unbelievable amount of heart and fight to accomplish their ultimate goal."
Theiller's 22 kills today were a part of a double-double as she added 11 digs to the Fairfield defensive effort. First Team All-MAAC honorees Skyler Day and Megan O'Sullivan joined her on the MAAC All-Championship Team.
Day also posted a double-double – her ninth in a row – with 11 kills and 15 digs. O'Sullivan added 14 finishers with seven digs and three blocks in the middle.
Rounding out the offense was MAAC All-Rookie Team selection Oyinkansola Akinola with six kills to go along with five blocks. Chanel Cooper sent home five kills with five blocks, and Kaitlyn Fisher added one.
The offense was run through Sydney Buckley, who recorded a double-double with 55 assists and 13 digs from the setter position as well as a kill of her own.
Helming the defensive effort from the libero spot was Taylor Rudeen with 28 digs, while Mallory Bechtold notched 17. At the net, Akinola and Cooper were each a part of five of the Stags' nine team blocks. O'Sullivan had a hand in three send-backs as the Fairfield defense limited Marist to a .176 hitting percentage.
Kelsey Lahey had a double-double with 16 kills and 12 digs for Marist (21-10), which wraps up its season in the MAAC Championship Match for the third straight sets. The Red Foxes also got a double-double from setter Amanda Schlegel with 47 assists and 10 digs. Kelsey Ediger and Lexi Millington paced the back row with 26 digs apiece.
Fairfield will return to the NCAA postseason for the first time since making back-to-back trips in 2012 and 2013. The Stags and the rest of Division I's 64-team field will learn their initial tournament destination next Sunday, Nov. 29 at 9 p.m.
