ST. DAVIDS, Pa.—Eastern University Women's Volleyball (23-7) emerged with a 33-31 win in the opening set before powering past the visiting Hood College Blazers in for a three-set win.  The Eagles hit .296 as a team to earn a spot in a conference championship match for the 30th-straight season under Head Coach Mark Birtwistle.

The Eagles will take on the Stevenson University Mustangs in Saturday's final. The second-seeded Mustangs beat Messiah in four after dropping the opening set. Eastern and Stevenson have played in three MAC Commonwealth Championship matches since Eastern joined the league in 2021.

In tonight's match, the Eagles faced a Hood team that had earned a spot in the tournament for the first time since 2015. The Blazers (-) grabbed the fourth seed with a stunning reverse sweep over Widener on the final day of the regular season. The guests came into the match with confidence and it a sense of looseness.

The Eagles went up 13-8 in the first, but the Blazers put together service runs and tied the set at 16 with Ann Ofoegbu and Skyler Plante serving. Another service run forced Birtwistle to burn his second timeout with Hood up 22-20. While the Eagles tied the set at 22-22 on a Sarah Furey ace, the Blazers scored the next two points on a kill from Anna Daley and an Eastern hitting error to pick up a pair of set points.

Alexis Standford pounded a kill over the Hood block to erase one set point, and the Eagles erased the other with a block from Maddie Golia and Jessie Schreiber after tough serve from Standford, who was back to serve because the Eagles were out of substitutions. The junior outside went one better on her next serve with an ace to give the Eagles a set point.

Hood refused to go quietly. They closed up a block to earn the first of seven consecutive sideouts. The Eagles had a set point each time they served, but the Blazers had answers. Hood flipped the score with a Daley kill to go up 29-28, but Standford delivered a kill for a sideout and for a point with Veronica Faber serving.

With eastern back in command, the teams traded sideouts to 32-31 before Hannah Pringle put away her eighth kill of the frame to give the Eagles the set.

Standford ahd seven kills on 14 swings and Faber had three blocks. Furey registered 13 assists, and Viviana Fragoso had eight digs. Daley had seven kills in the first set to lead Hood.

"They [Hood] served tough in the first set," Birtwistle said after the match. "They were aggressive with their serving and their hitting and they did not miss early on.
They put us under pressure, and we made some plays to respond. We are not going to play a match the rest of the way where we don't face some pressure moments like that."

After a close first set, the Eagles began to dominate. They put down 15 kills and held Hood to a .000 hitting percentage on the way to a 25-12 win in the seconds set.

Grace Cooper served the Eagles to a 6-0 lead to start the third. Eastern built an 18-6 lead on the way to winning 25-11 in the third. Schreiber and Pringle each had five kills and a .625 hitting percentage to lead the Eagles to a .462 percentage as a team. The Blazers hit a negative number in the third set.

With her 23 digs tonight, Fragoso now has 485 this season and moves into 15th place on Eastern's career list. Schreiber had nine kills and five blocks, and Golia had five kills and four blocks. Faber had five rejections to go over 100 on the year. Josie Arezina hit .400 with six kills and a pair of blocks.

"We got some good blocks up and had some big digs to change the momentum after the first," Birtwistle continued. "We got good production from our middles and our right sides. Josie, Jessie, and Maddie all hit for a good percentage."

Rogers had three aces, 13 digs, and 13 assists and Furey finished with 29 assists and six digs.

The winner of Saturday's MAC Commonwealth Championship game will earn the league's AQ to the NCAA Tournament.