Fairfield University Volleyball makes its 13th trip to the NCAA postseason, heading to West Lafayette, Ind. to meet #12 nationally-ranked Purdue. Opening serve in the NCAA Championship First Round is slated for Thursday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. and will air live on ESPN+. Purdue is the third-seeded team in the Madison (Wisconsin) Region, while the Stags enter the tournament unseeded.
2023 MAAC CHAMPIONS
Fairfield Volleyball won the 2023 MAAC Championship with a 3-1 win over defending champion Quinnipiac on Nov. 19 at Mahoney Arena. The Stags have won a conference-leading 13 MAAC Championships since 1997.
Nancy Somera is the first MAAC head coach to win the MAAC Championship in their first season since Kris Zeitler led Iona to the 2004 title.
A REGULAR OCCURRENCE
Fairfield Volleyball is the only team in the nation with an active streak of five consecutive outright MAAC Regular Season Championships (no shares, no divisions). In total, the Stags have won or shared 22 of the last 28 MAAC Regular Season crowns.
In addition to five consecutive MAAC Regular Season Championships, the Stags have won eight of the last nine, and 10 of the last 12 regular season titles.
FAMILY TRADITION
With Fairfield's MAAC Championship win, Head Coach
Nancy Somera is one of three members of her household to compete in the NCAA postseason in 2023.
Somera's husband Ben Somera is head coach of Wesleyan University (in Middletown, Connecticut), which won the New England Small College Athletic Conference and advanced to the regional finals of the NCAA Division III Championship.
Nancy and Ben's daughter Maile Somera was the Ivy League co-Defensive Player of the Year at Yale, which won the Ancient Eight two weeks ago and will play Penn State in the NCAA Championship First Round on Thursday at in Lawrence, Kansas.
BALANCED ATTACK
Mikayla Haut ranks eighth in the MAAC with 2.85 kills per set. While Haut is the only Stag among the conference's top-10 in kills per frame, Fairfield boasts a league-high six of the MAAC's 33 hitters averaging over 1.50 kills per set.
8.
Mikayla Haut, 2.85
15.
Allie Elliott, 2.48
19.
Mamie Krubally, 2.13
28.
Maya Walker, 1.82
32. Svenja Rodenbüsch, 1.56
33.
Janna Schlageter, 1.54
LUCKY SEVENS
Fairfield's 14 student-athlete roster consists of seven returners from 2022 as well as seven newcomers to the program. However, the Stags are an experienced team with 12 of 14 players on the roster in at least their second season of collegiate volleyball.
STAGS IN THE STANDS
Fairfield set a new program attendance record on Sept. 2 against UMBC as 1,715 fans packed the bleachers for the first-ever match at the Leo D. Mahoney Arena. That figure is also believed to be a MAAC record for a regular season match.
The previous Fairfield attendance mark of 1,018 was set in the 3-0 sweep of UConn at Alumni Hall on Nov. 6, 1999. Alumni Hall also hosted a crowd of 1,002 fans for the 2007 MAAC Championship Match between the Stags and Siena.
FOUR YEARS, FOUR HOUSES
As the only four-year member of the Stags this season,
Kyla Berg has played on four different home courts in her four seasons at Fairfield. The 2020 (spring 2021) Stags played home matches at both Alumni Hall and Rafferty Gymnasium (basketball practice facility) inside the Walsh Athletic Center. In 2021 and 2022, Fairfield played inside the University RecPlex while awaiting the completion of the Leo D. Mahoney Arena - the new home of the Stags beginning this fall.
NON-CONFERENCE NOTES
The Stags went 4-4 against non-MAAC competition this fall. Fairfield earned wins over Army, CCSU, Sacred Heart and Bryant while falling to Cal, UMBC, LIU and Northwestern.
UMBC went on to win the America East, while LIU claimed the Northeast Conference title.
STAGS VS. THE BIG TEN
Fairfield is 1-16 all-time against Big Ten opponents. The lone win came over Iowa in the 1998 season, which saw the Stags finish with the best record in the nation at 35-2.
Fairfield also holds two wins over Rutgers, but both occurred before the Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten in 2014.
Excluding the Spring 2021 season in which only conference matches were played, the Stags have played a Big Ten opponent in four of the last five campaigns. Most recently, Fairfield challenged Northwestern this past September and Michigan State in the opening weekend of the 2022 season.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRACKET
The winner of Thursday's first-ever meeting between the Stags and Boilermakers will play the winner of Thursday's early matchup between Marquette and Eastern Illinois.
The team to advance out of West Lafayette this weekend will play the surviving team from the pod convening this week at Oregon.
