Box Score

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. – The Niagara volleyball team clinched its second straight regular-season conference title with a 25-19, 25-17, 25-20 win over the Rider Broncs on Saturday.

Niagara (22-8, 16-1 MAAC) claimed its second consecutive regular-season title and its program’s second, with the first coming last season. The Purple Eagles will be the No. 1 seed in next week’s MAAC Tournament in Jersey City, N.J.

“It was definitely a goal of ours to win the regular-season title,” head coach Susan Clements said. “Now we just need to wait and see who we draw and go from there to prepare for the tournament.”

The Purple Eagles rolled to their sixth straight win against Rider (5-24, 3-14 MAAC). Hannah Hedrick led the match with 16 kills and added 16 digs to record her team-leading 16th double-double, while Ellen Senf had 13 kills on the day.

NU had a solid defensive performance and was exceptional in serving. The Purple Eagles had 10 aces, which were tied for second most this season; NU has 22 aces in two matches against Rider this season.  Niagara had a season-high in team digs in a three-match set with 86 and four players were in double-digit digs. 

Kari Honomichl had a career-high 26 digs in the match and Sam Morgan broke her own single-season school record in digs. Morgan now has 639 digs on the season which breaks her total of 613 set in 2009. Morgan led the match with 26 digs to extend her NCAA-best double-digit digs streak to 126 matches.

“Our serving and defense were really superb today,” Clements said.  “We made some big plays in the backrow which has been lacking.”

Niagara will finish its regular season on Sunday against Loyola at Noon.