Photo Gallery

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- In one of the biggest moments in its history, CNU volleyball defeated three-time defending national champion Juniata College 3-0 (25-14, 25-21, 25-21) in the second round of the NCAA tournament Friday afternoon in Virginia Beach.
 
The Eagles, ranked 8th in the AVCA national poll, had won 19 consecutive postseason matches and 23 of their last 24. They had reached the Final Four in four consecutive seasons.
 
"Juniata is the bench mark in D-III volleyball," Captains coach Lindsay Birch said. "They're the model all of us are trying to strive for in terms of sustained success. To have a win against them in the postseason is just huge.
 
"And to do it in pretty convincing fashion, it really justifies how good we think we are. Because we think we're pretty good."
 
The Captains (26-7) advanced to the regional final against the Virginia Wesleyan-Berry College winner Saturday at 3 p.m. Berry's head coach is Caitlyn Moriarty, who played at CNU from 2007-10 when her surname was Jansen.
 
The Captains had a .315 attack percentage, the highest Juniata has given up all season.  In fact, it is the highest any opponent has registered against the three-time defending champs since Johns Hopkins hit .319 on September 27, 2019 -- a span of 195 matches. CNU is only the second team to sweep Juniata in the last five seasons. 

Alyssa Dozier had 16 kills with a .560 percentage. She moved up in the top-five all-time, surpassing Ellen Koch (2005-08) and now has 1,350 career kills for fourth all-time. With six blocks, she is now tied with legend Bailey Jensen (2009-12) atop the all-time list with 460. She also ranks second in career blocks in the NCAA Tournament, becoming just the second player to reach 50 over the course of her career. 
 
Samantha Dorn added nine kills and Carpenedo had seven. Alexander and Avery Hanly added three each.
 
CNU had nine service aces (two each by Emmy Carpenedo, Fielding Croft and Simara Alexander) with only four errors.

It was CNU's 20^th win in its last 22 matches, a span that coincides with Croft (29 assists) taking over in the 5-1 rotation.
 
"Really the last four weeks, pretty much every match we're hitting over .300 or close to it," Birch said. "Hitting percentage is the statistic that's most indicative of high-level play. Game in and game out, we've been doing that.
 
"Fielding just runs a beautiful offense. She really knows how to distribute and she knows how to go to the hot hitter. You've got to give the quarterback some credit for our efficiency."
 
CNU took over the first set with a dominating 14-3 run that turned an 8-8 tie into a 22-11 lead. Dozier had two kills and a block in the run, and she later clinched the set with her sixth kill.
 
In the second set, there were five ties before the Captains scored four consecutive points (two on kills by Dozier) for a 16-12 lead. A service ace by Carpenedo gave CNU its biggest lead of the set at 22-16, and a Dozier kill on Croft's assist clinched the second set.
 
The third set was tied after 38 points, but the Captains closed with a 6-2 run, three points coming on kills by Dorn. Fittingly, the match-clinching point came a kill by Dozier with an assist from Croft.