The Carthage College women's volleyball team (30-7, 6-1 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), ranked ninth in the Nov. 2 American Volleyball Coaches Association NCAA Division III poll, won the CCIW Women's Volleyball Tournament on Saturday, Nov. 6 with a 3-0 win over Wheaton College (Ill., 17-19) at Millikin University's Griswold Center in Decatur, Ill.
The second-seeded Lady Reds' winning set scores over the fifth-seeded Thunder were 25-11, 25-11 and 25-18. With the win, Carthage earned the league's automatic qualifier to the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship which gets underway next week with a regional championship at Carthage's Tarble Arena. Carthage has won 12 matches in a row and 22-of-24 going into the regionals.
In the title match, outside hitter Michelle Madeja (Jr., Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) led the Lady Reds with nine kills and a .208 attack percentage, while outside hitter Lauren Dembkowski (Jr., Mount Prospect, Ill./Arlington Heights-Hersey) had eight kills and a .250 mark. Setter Drewann Pancratz (Jr., Schaumburg, Ill.) averaged 9.67 assists per set. Madeja, Dembkowski and Pancratz were named to the all-tournament team, with Pancratz being named the MVP.
Carthage swept third-seeded Elmhurst College (24-13), 3-0, in a Friday, Nov. 5 semifinal match with winning set scores of 27-25, 31-29 and 25-18. Wheaton (Ill., 17-18) knocked off top-seeded and No. 26 Millikin University (28-7), 3-2, in the other semifinal match with winning scores of 14-25, 25-23, 16-25, 25-21 and 16-14.
In the Tuesday, Nov. 2 play-in round, Carthage defeated seventh-seeded Illinois Wesleyan University (11-20, 1-6 CCIW), 3-1, with winning set scores of 25-19, 25-17, 18-25 and 25-12. Millikin (28-6, 7-0 CCIW) got past eighth-seeded North Park University (8-22, 0-7 CCIW), 3-1; Elmhurst (24-12, 5-2) swept sixth-seeded North Central College (14-21, 2-5), 3-0; and Wheaton (Ill., 16-18, 3-4) swept fourth-seeded Augustana College (Ill., 12-20, 4-3), 3-0.
