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Black Bears Defeated by Albany in America East Title Game
Nov. 20, 2004 Albany, N.Y. -- Despite trailing two games to one, the University at Albany volleyball team defeated the University of Maine, 3-2, to win the 2004 America East Volleyball Championship at University Gymnasium on Saturday evening. With its victory, Albany earns the conference's automatic bid to the 2004 NCAA Championship. The Maine Black Bears finished the season 17-11. Albany wins its first-ever America East Volleyball Championship and becomes the seventh different team to win the league crown in the 14-year history of the event. The Great Danes were making their third-ever tournament appearance and the Black Bears just their second. Albany had never been in the title match prior to today, while Maine's only final match experience came in 2001 when it was swept by Northeastern, 3-0. The dramatic five-game match marked the first time in conference history that the title game went the distance. America East adopted its current single elimation four-team format for the 1995 and of the previous nine championships none needed a fifth game to determine the winner. Albany forced a fifth game despite trailing two games to one. The first game of the match was pretty straight forward for the Great Danes as they jumped out to an early lead and lengthened it throughout the game before winning the opening frame 30-20. The second game, however, was a back-and-forth battle that featured substantial leads by both squads. Albany rolled out to an early 14-9 lead in game #2 before the Black Bears reeled off a 10-1 run to gain a 19-15 advantage. Maine would then lead by as many as four on two different occasions before Albany fought back to cut the Black Bear lead to two, 26-24. First-year head coach Lynn Theehs called a timeout for Maine to rally her team and it worked as Leah Guidinger ended the game with a big kill, 30-28. The Black Bears then really applied the pressure to the Great Danes as they won game three 30-22 to take a 2-1 lead. That third game was all Maine as it got off to a quick 7-0 lead and never looked back. Albany had to respond in game four to keep the match alive and the Great Danes did just that. In game four, Maine once again led very early, 3-1, but Albany got things together and took the must-win game, 30-20. The Black Bears last led in the fourth game 7-6 before the Great Danes tied things up and then stretched its lead to a game-high 10, 30-20, forming the game's final margin.
The fifth and decisive game was controlled by Maine nearly the entire way, until when it mattered most. The Black Bears led as many as three, 9-6, before America East Coach of the Year Kelly Sheffield took a timeout to try to regroup his Great Danes. The conference's top team responded as it went on a 3-0 run to tie the match at 9-9, which ignited a raucous crowd at University Gymnasium. The final game was then heated the rest of the way as it was tied at 10, 11, 12 and 13 before Albany broke away to record the win. With the score knotted at 13-13, Ashley Green came up with a crucial service ace to give the Great Danes their first lead of the final game, 14-13. Maine then took a timeout to try to control Albany, but it was too late. Albany's Shelby Goldman recorded a booming title-clinching kill as the Great Danes won the final game 15-13, taking the match 3-2. Statistically speaking, the match was nearly a push as Albany outhit the Black Bears by a very slim .253 to .250 margin. Maine recorded more blocks (16 to six), but the Great Danes tallied more digs (71-58). The Great Danes' Ashley Hunter was named the championship's Most Outstanding Player as she was dominant in both of Albany's matches in the four-team tournament. Hunter broke the single-match record for kills as she tallied an impressive 28 in the championship match. The 2004 All- Championship Team, which was selected by the four coaches that competed in the championship, featured Albany's Hunter, Goldman (25 kills) and Ashlee Reed (62 assists), Maine's Kaili Jordan (13 kills and 10 digs) and Carmen Morgan (18 kills and 15 digs), Binghamton's Megan Hoag and Northeastern's Ashley Adamczyk. |
