Fairfield Takes on Texas in 2017 NCAA Volleyball Championship First Round
2017 NCAA Volleyball Championship Bracket
EDISON, NJ – The 2017 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Volleyball Champions, Fairfield University (25-6, 18-0 MAAC) faces No. 6 seed University of Texas (24-2, 16-0 Big 12) in the First Round of the NCAA Volleyball Championship. The opening round matchup is slated for Friday, December 1, at 8 p.m. (ET) in Austin, TX.
The Stags claimed their third-straight MAAC Volleyball Championship, which marked a conference record 10
th in program history. Fairfield enters the 2017 NCAA Volleyball Championship on a 21-match winning streak and winners of 51-straight matches against conference opponents, the longest such streak in the nation.
2017 MAAC Volleyball Player of the Year, senior outside hitter Skyler Day was named the Championship MVP. Day hit .367, tallied 14 kills, and nine digs in the Championship final against Iona College on Sunday, November 19. 2017 MAAC Setter of the Year, sophomore Manuela Nicolini and freshman middle blocker Luci Albertson were named to the All-Championship Team.
Fairfield earned the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Volleyball Championship for the third year in a row. The Stags fell to Michigan State (3-0) in 2016 and were defeated by Texas (3-0) in 2015. Fairfield looks to become the first team from the MAAC to win a match in the NCAA Volleyball Tournament.
About the 2017 NCAA Volleyball Championship:
The NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball committee announced the 64-team field that will compete in the 2017 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship. Thirty-two conferences were awarded an automatic qualification, while the remaining 32 positions were filled with at-large selections to complete the bracket.
The top 16 teams were seeded nationally and placed within four regions. Pennsylvania State University, earned the top seed followed by No. 2 University of Florida, the defending national champion Stanford University earned the third seed, while the University of Kentucky rounded out the top four.
Per the established bracketing principles, the top 16 seeds were provided the opportunity to host. Additionally, team pairings were determined by geographic proximity, with the exception that teams from the same conference were not paired during the first- and second-rounds.
About the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference:
With 11 institutions strongly bound by the sound principles of quality and integrity in academics and excellence in athletics, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) is in its 37
th year of competition during the 2017-18 academic year. Current Conference members include: Canisius College, Fairfield University, Iona College, Manhattan College, Marist College, Monmouth University, Niagara University, Quinnipiac University, Rider University, Saint Peter's University, and Siena College.