BACK-TO-BACK!!! Volleyball Claims Second Straight East Coast Conference Championship

Bridgeport, Conn.-The University of Bridgeport women's volleyball team picked up its second straight East Coast Conference women's volleyball championship on Saturday night with a hard-fought, back-and-forth , five set, 25-15, 20-25, 25-17, 15-25, 15-8 win over the NYIT Bears in UB's Harvey Hubbell Gymnasium.  Saturday match featured the top-seed Purple Knights and the second seed Bears saw 19 ties and five lead changes throughout the contest.  With the ECC title, Bridgeport receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division II National Championship which is scheduled to begin on Thursday, December 5th.  The pairing for the NCAA Championship will be announced on Monday evening at 7:30 p.m., and the Purple Knights entered the ECC Championship as the top-ranked team in the East Region so there is a strong possibility that UB will be selected to host the eight-team event.  Bridgeport will be making its sixth straight NCAA Division II Championship appearance this season.

The Purple Knights head into the NCAA Tournament with a 21-2 record and on a 15-match winning streak.  NYIT is now 26-6, and the Bears should also receive an invitation the NCAA's on Monday.  Bridgeport has now won three ECC titles (2009, 2012, 1013) during the five-year tenure of head coach Leo Uzcategui.

Tournament Most Outstanding Player Biljana Savic (Jr., Novi Sad, Serbia) posted another triple-double for the winners with 28 assists, 11 digs and 10 kills. Savic also had three block assists

UB junior Ying Shen (Nanjing, China) led all players in the match with 19 kills, and sophomore Sarah Rosa (Itajuba, Brazil) had a double-double with 12 kills and 11 digs.

Sophomore libero Martina Santia (Seeze, Italy) led the Purple Knights' defense with a match-high 19 digs.

Junior Larissa Oliveira (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) had a strong match at the net for Bridgeport with nine kills (an attack percentage of .400) and six block assists.

UB senior Fernanda Silva (Brasilia, Brazil) was shy short of a double-double with 17 assists and nine digs.

Senior Katarina Sretenovic had a strong match for NYIT with a team-high 14 kills and eight block assists.  Follow senior Shelby Cable had a double-double for the Bears with 14 digs and 12 kills.  Sophomore Kate Brock chipped in 10 kills with a .429 attack percent, and senior Kelly Brown was strong at the net with nine blocks on the evening for the ECC runners-ups. 

Senior Marija Jovanovic directed the Bears' offense to the tune of a match-high 41 assists.

All three of the matches played between Bridgeport and NYIT so far in 2013 have gone the full five sets with UB taking two of them.