HARTFORD, Conn. - The Trinity College volleyball team, which posted a regular-season record of 9-13 and finished tied with Colby for seventh place in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) at 4-6, has qualified for the eight-team NESCAC Championship Tournament for the 13th time and for the first year since 2018.  The Bantams, coached by Jen Bowman (19th Season) earned the No. 7 seed in the tournament due to its 3-0 win at Colby on October 1 and will play the No. 2-seeded Tufts University Jumbos (18-5, 9-1) in the quarterfinal round of the league tourney on Friday, November 4 at 5 p.m.  Trinity lost a competitive match, 3-1, against the Jumbos during the regular season, at home on September 17 and is 0-3 all-time against Tufts in the tournament including a 3-0 setback against them in the 2014 quarterfinals.  All three days of the NESCAC Tournament will be held at Wesleyan University in Middletown.

The winner of Trinity's quarterfinal match will play the winner of the 7:30 p.m. match on Friday between No. 3-seeded Williams (13-7, 7-3) and No. 6-seeded Middlebury (14-9, 5-5).  The other 5 p.m. match features top-seeded Wesleyan (21-2, 9-1) against No. 8-seeded Colby (14-8, 4-6) and No. 4-seeded Amherst (13-6, 7-3) faces No. 5-seeded Bowdoin (13-9, 6-4) in the other 7:30 p.m. match.  The winner of the NESCAC Championship Tournament will determine the league's automatic qualifier for the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament.  Trinity has been to the NESCAC Semifinals three times since the conference office started running the event in 2000, including most recently in 2011, and was last seeded No. 7 in 2013.

Trinity put itself in position to qualify for the post-season with a road sweep at Bates and Colby and a 3-1 win at Connecticut College to finish 3-1 in away matches in the conference.  Trinity needed a win in the season's final weekend and came through with a thrilling 3-2 victory over Hamilton that included two 25-23 set wins and an 18-16 triumph in the fifth set.  The Bantams lost, 3-1, to Middlebury the next day and dropped from the No. 6 to the No. 7 seed.  Trinity sophomore RS Eva Lekovic (San Marino, Calif.) paced the Trinity offense with 19 kills and classmate Ava Boloyan (American Canyon, Calif.) had 13 kills against the Continentals.  First-year Caroline Howell (Houston, Texas) notched 28 assists and senior co-captain MH Molly Bernstein (Oakland, Calif.) was stellar was six kills against no errors and nine blocks and Lekovic added six blocks.  Bernstein was honored as the NESCAC Player of the Week for her outstanding performance.

Trinity junior co-captain OH Lola Craig (Los Angeles, Calif.) leads Trinity offensively with 192 kills (2.40 per set), followed closely by Lekovic with 147 (2.23 per set).  Bernstein has been the most efficient Bantam on offense with a .303 hitting percentage (8th in NESCAC) on 135 kills and also the team's top blocker with 60 (0.75 per set).  Howell has a team-high 388 assists (5.24 per set) and sophomore DS Kaila Dowd (Kennesaw, Ga.) leads Trinity in aces with 25 (0.35 per set).  Sophomore L Julia Torre (Cape Elizabeth, Maine) ranks 10th in the NESCAC with digs per set with 255 (3.40 per set) and Craig has 208 digs (2.60 per set).  Other consistent performances in the Trinity rotation have been Boloyan at outside hitter. junior OH/RS Margaret McCarthy (San Diego, Calif.), sophomore MH Isabella Caffuzi (Brooklyn, N.Y.), and sophomore S Grace Sullivan (Fort Worth, Texas).