When Fairfield University Volleyball takes the court on Friday evening at #7 Minnesota in the NCAA Championship First Round, it will mark the 11th NCAA postseason appearance for the Stags. Fairfield will also be seeking its first-ever win on the national stage and the first for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
 
The Stags' senior class – Jamie Calandro, Mayda Garcia, Manuela Nicolini and Sonja Radulovic – is making its third trip to the NCAA postseason. And while the daunting task of knocking off the Golden Gophers looms just as large for the quartet as Michigan State in 2016 or Texas in 2017, the Stags' upperclassmen will bring the approach to Maturi Pavilion that has already led the squad to 24 wins and a MAAC Championship this fall.
 
"We always try to have the same mindset regardless of who we're playing," said Radulovic. "This is one of the strongest and most complete teams we've had, and we've worked hard for this all season, so this could be our year. Why not us?"
 
But alongside those words, there still remains an appreciation of what a win on Friday night would mean for Fairfield Volleyball, the MAAC and for the Division I landscape. Only once before has a top-10 seed been upended on its home court in the First Round (#5 Northern Iowa in 2010) since the current seeding format was adopted in 2000.
 
"It would mean the world," said Radulovic of the Stags' potential upset bid. "It's a goal for each and every one of us to be the team that does it."
 
Head Coach Todd Kress will be on the sidelines for his sixth NCAA Championship with the Stags and his eighth overall as a Division I head coach. The 2019 MAAC Coach of the Year – his conference-best seventh time receiving that recognition from his peers, Kress echoes his team's sentiment.
 
"What's guided us the entire year has been one vision, one voice and one goal," said Kress. "We know Minnesota is big and physical, and they're one of the top teams in the country. But we're going to go out and defend and fight from the first point to the last."
 
"The bond that we share off the court and how deeply we care about each other, trust each other and love each other all translates into something really special on the court," added Calandro. "Believing that you can is half the battle, and everybody in our locker room believes that we can do it."
 
The history is the history, the facts are the facts, and the numbers are the numbers. But on Friday night, Fairfield Volleyball will cast all of that aside, stand across the net from Big Ten and national powerhouse Minnesota, and ask one question.
 
"Why not us?"