COBLESKILL, N.Y.--The Maine Maritime Academy women's volleyball team overcame a slow start to come back with a convincing 24-26, 25-12, 25-11, 25-7 victory Saturday over host SUNY-Cobleskill to capture the 2024 North Atlantic Conference Championship at Iorio Gymnasium, earning an automatic berth to the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball National Championship.

Maine Maritime improves to 18-10 overall while Cobleskill sees its season end at 8-21.

"We employed an offense that was well-distributed this afternoon and the team is getting better along the net," MMA first-year head coach Heather Benson said. "After a slow start, the team really locked in on controlling the pace of the match with solid serving and consistency at the net. We kept the ball in play and allowed Coblskill to make the mistakes."

Maine Maritime Highlights

• Senior setter and NAC Tournament Most Valuable Player Katie Albritton led all student-athletes with 19 assists.
• Senior Sydney Rich, freshman Hannah Tate and sophomore Amber Cooklin led the defense with eight digs apiece.
• The Mariners had a balanced offense led by sophomores Ally Hadley (.300), Sydney Williams (.500) with a match-best 11 kills apiece, followed by juniors Sam Urch (.500), Ila Smith (.385) with nine and eight, respectively. 
• Hadley also dished 16 assists, had two blocks and was three digs shy of a triple-double.
• Senior Chloe Weeks contributed four total blocks to pace all student-athletes.
• Tate added a season-high five service aces.
• The Mariners finished the match with a .277 attack percentage while holding the Fighting Tigers to minus-.088.

SUNY-Cobleskill Highlights

• Hallie Gasner led the team with six kills.
• Baylee Kirschberg recorded a double-double with 16 assists and a match-high 10 digs.

First Set

• The Fighting Tigers limited MMA to a .069 attack percentage to take a surprising 26-24 opening set and lead the match 1-0.
• Neither team led by more than three points in a back-and-forth frame. Trailing 24-23, Cobleskill took advantage of three Mariner errors.

Second Set

• Maine Maritime, however, regrouped to turn the tables both offensively and defensively--outhitting the opponent .222 to minus-.200.
• Cobleskill briefly led 2-0 before MMA went on a 15-3 scoring run to go up 15-5.
• The Fighting Tigers couldn't get any closer than six points as the match was tied up 1-set apiece.

Third Set

• The Mariners stormed out to another quick lead at 10-1 that ballooned to 15-4.
• Maine Maritime hit .320 and held Cobleskill to minus-.200 to take a two-sets-to-one lead.

Fourth Set

• It was all MMA all the time in the decisive frame, outhitting the Fighting Tigers .600-(minus).200.
• The Mariners never trailed, darting to leads of 6-0 and 18-4.

Beyond the Boxscore

• Joining Albritton on the NAC All-Tournament Team were Tate and Williams.
• Maine Maritime earns its 11th NAC Championship overall and first since 2022; now 4-5 on the road in conference championship matches.
• The Mariners have made the conference finals in every season since 2007 (no championship held in the 2020 COVID year).
• MMA is the No. 1 seed out of the East Division and Cobleskill the No. 2 from the West.
• The only previous meeting was in the 2021 NAC Finals in Castine, where MMA was victorious in a sweep.
• The Mariners are now 2-0 in conference championship matches held in New York state.
• The program is 35-10 all-time in the NAC Tournament.

Next Up

• Maine Maritime will learn where it fits into the national tournament field as the 2024 NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Selection Show will air Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern on NCAA.com. A link to the show will be on the front page of NCAA.com.