Emory Volleyball Eyes UAA Championships

UAA CHAMPIONSHIP FACTS - The Emory volleyball team begins its "second season" of action this Friday and Saturday (Nov. 6-7) when it competes at the University Athletic Association Championships.  Serving as the host site of the Championships will be the University of Chicago with the matches played at the Ratner Center.

The Eagles enter the weekend as the No. 2 seed and will play out of Pool B.  Washington University stands as the No. 1 seed and will compete out of Pool A.

Emory, 30-5 on the year, will open against Brandeis on Friday in a noon start (CST).  The Eagles will then close out the opening day of action with a 2:00 contest against Carnegie Mellon.  On Saturday, head coach Jenny McDowell and her squad tangles with host Chicago at 10:00 a.m.  The third, fifth, and seventh-place matches will take place at 2:00 p.m. with the championship bout slated for a 4:00 p.m. start.

Emory, ranked No. 4 in the nation, has won its last nine outings and are coming off a 4-0 weekend that saw it capture its Halloween Tournament.  The Eagles topped LaGrange College and Berry by 3-0 scores on Friday before registering 3-0 and 3-1 decisions against Randolph-Macon and Birmingham Southern, respectively, on Saturday.  The two wins raised the team's record at the Woodruff PE Center to 19-1 this season.

The championship site is located here:
http://athletics.uchicago.edu/volleyball/vb-uaachampionship-2009.htm

 Live video of the championship match will be available here (this link is also available at the site above):
http://athletics.uchicago.edu/volleyball/vb-uaachampionship-2009.htm

NOTES - Sophomore Jessica McAlvany was named UAA Co-Player of the Week, the third time this season that she had been selected for the award ... McAlvany played in 10 of the team's 13 sets and paced the team with 50 kills (5.00 kps) while hitting 45.5 percent (50-10-88) ...  McAlvnay will head into the weekend with 18 matches of double-figure kills to her credit including a pair of 20-plus terminations ... In UAA statistics released at the start of the week, McAlvany ranks sixth among UAA players in kills (3.19 kps) and is seventh with a 32.1 hitting percentage ... Sophomore setter Natalie Schonefeld, a member of the Emory Halloween All-Tournament Team stands second in the conference with a 10.82 assists per set average ... Schonefeld has 1,233 assists this year, good for ninth place on the school's seasonal chart ... Junior Amelia McCall rounded out the team's representatives on the all-tournament team, recording double figures in kills in two of the three matches she played ..  McCall totaled 14 put-aways against Berry College, tying her second-highest mark of the season ... The Eagles hit a season-high 48.9 percent in the Berry contest, their fifth performance of 40 percent or better this year.