Men’s volleyball wins NECVA Championship | Brewers to play in National tournament this weekend

Elizabeth Pacheco Senior Editor

For the first time in program history, the Vassar men’s volleyball team will compete in the Molten Division III National Championship Tournament. The team received an automatic bid to the Tournament after they captured the North East Collegiate Volleyball Association (NECVA) title this past weekend, April 4-6.

As the first seed in the NECVA Tournament, Vassar faced City College of New York in the opening round, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ramapo College in the semifinals.
After handily defeating all of these teams 3-0, the Brewers faced a slightly bigger challenge against No. 6 Newbury College, but shut them down 3-1. Just two weeks ago Newbury played on Vassar’s home turf, where they lost to the Brewers in five games.

With a current 25-6 overall record and an undefeated 22-0 season in the NECVA League, this is perhaps the most successful season that the program has ever seen. Head Coach Jonathan Penn was named the NECVA Conference Coach of the Year, and the league recognized Phil Tully ’10 as the Conference Player of the Year and member of the All-Conference First Team.

At the Tournament, John Kessenich ’09 was named the Most Valuable Player. Kessenich, Tully, Kyle Giunta ’08 and Scott Leserman ’09, were also members of the All-Tournament Team.

Furthermore, the America Volleyball Coaches Association named Tully and Kessenich as First Team All-Americans and Giunta to the Second Team.

Co-captain Tom Pawlowski ’08 said that going into the tournament “there was a lot of pressure and expectations as the No. 1 seed.

“I’m really proud of us that we were able to use that pressure to our advantage,” he said. “With the win last weekend, we kind of feel like the pressure is off. So hopefully with our current win streak, we will be able to go all out and come through with a big win.”
Hosted by Springfield College, the Brewers are the fourth seed in this final four Molten championship.

They will face off against the University of Santa Cruz, who is currently the No. 1 team in the country, in the semifinal round on Friday, April 11. The second and third seeds in the tournament are Springfield and Juniata College, respectively.