Fairfield University Volleyball heads west to Los Angeles for the 12th NCAA Championship appearance in program history. The MAAC Champion Stags will meet 13th-seeded and #14 nationally-ranked UCLA on Friday, Dec. 3 at 10 PM (ET) at Pauley Pavilion.
2021 MAAC Champions
The Fairfield Stags won the 2021 MAAC Championship -- their conference-record 12th tournament crown -- on Nov. 21 with a 3-0 sweep of second-seeded Rider.
KJ Johnson was named the MAAC Championship MVP after averaging 4.33 kills and 2.83 digs per set in the Stags' three-match run. Also the 2021 MAAC Player of the Year, Johnson led the conference and ranks ninth nationally this season with 4.82 kills per set.
Johnson was joined on the All-Championship Team by
Manuela Nicolini and
Laura Seeger. Seeger was inserted into the lineup on the right side for Sunday's championship match and responded with 12 kills on .500 hitting. She was also a part of three blocks. Nicolini – the four-time MAAC Setter of the Year – dished out 36 assists and ran the attack to a season-high .404 hitting percentage. She also capped her 12th double-double with 10 digs and dumped over three kills of her own.
2021 MAAC Regular Season Champions
Fairfield Volleyball secured its conference-record 20th MAAC Regular Season Championship with a 16-2 league mark this fall as a part of the 21-8 overall tally. The Stags clinched the top seed in the league by two games over second-place Rider, who they swept twice during the campaign.
The Stags now have won three straight MAAC Championships, six of the last seven, and eight of the last 10. Head Coach
Todd Kress has been at the helm for nine of Fairfield's MAAC Regular Season Championships (1996, 1997, 1998, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, spring 2021, 2021).
California Stags
The weekend's regional is a homecoming for several west coast Stags:
Altadena's
Joelle Battles will be playing closest to home. The Maranatha High School graduate resides roughly 30 miles away from Pauley Pavilion.
Ella Gardiner is orginally from Christchurch, New Zealand but relocated with her family to San Clemente at age 13. And senior
Julia Kallen hails from San Diego, Calif.
On the sidelines, Associate Head Coach
Melissa Batie-Smoose is a Bay Area native who attended Amador Valley High School, and student assistant
Kaylee Christie calls Riverside home.
A Decade of Dominance
Over the past 10 seasons the Stags have won seven MAAC Championships and eight regular season titles. Fairfield has only lost two conference postseason matches since 2012, having missed the spring 2021 tournament before competition began due to Covid protocols. The Stags are 19-2 overall in the last 10 MAAC Championships.
Home Is Wherever We're Together
In the 2021 calendar year, Fairfield picked up home wins on three different courts on campus. In the spring, the Stags won two matches against Rider on March 7 to close Alumni Hall and then swept a pair from Siena in Rafferty Gymnasium (inside Walsh Athletic Center) on March 21.
This fall, the Stags have played their home matches at the on-campus Leslie C. Quick Jr. Recreation Complex (RecPlex), boasting an 11-3 home record and an 8-1 tally against MAAC opposition.
Fairfield's nomadic status is due to the ongoing construction of the new Arena and Convocation Center slated for completion in the fall of 2022.
