UW-Oshkosh Wins NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship

**UW-Oshkosh Sports Information contributed to this recap

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.--University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh claimed its first NCAA Division III Women’s Volleyball Championship with a 25-17, 25-22, 25-21 victory over University of La Verne (Calif.) at the Shirk Center on Dec. 6.

It is the fourth national title claimed by a Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) women’s volleyball program. Since the 1982-83 academic year, WIAC institutions have combined to win 134 NCAA Division III team championships.

UW-Oshkosh (34-3) did not lose a set in any of its six NCAA postseason matches enroute to the national crown. They are the first team to accomplish the feat since 2004. The championship match appearance was UW-Oshkosh's second in program history and the first since falling to Washington University in St. Louis (Mo.) in the 1994 title match.

UW-Oshkosh hit .195 in the three-set match and held the Leopards (30-3) to a .140 attack percentage. While La Verne led 9-7 in team blocks and 62-57 in digs, the Titans held advantages of 54-44 in points, 43-33 in kills, 4-2 in service aces, and 37-32 in assists.

Riley Borrowman got the first set going with a light tap over the net and into a large gap between defenders. The Titans then used a pair of three-point runs to create an early 9-3 lead and force a La Verne timeout. They recorded two more points out of the timeout before La Verne went on a 4-0 run to make the score 11-7. The Leopards got within three points; however, UW-Oshkosh responded with a 5-1 run that included three kills by Samantha Perlberg. The deficit hovered around six points until a service error by the Leopards gave the Titans the serve and Borrowman bookended the set with her third kill.

La Verne scored on the first two serves of the second set and retained the lead, fighting off 4-4, 9-9 and 10-10 ties before reclaiming the edge following a Perlberg and Lauren Grier combination block to make the score 11-10. Continuing the back-and-fourth set, UW-Oshkosh and La Verne got knotted up 10 more times at each point as neither team could score more than twice in a row. Perlberg broke the streak of ties with an ace and after La Verne called its first timeout, Grace Juergens and Grier tallied kills of their own to make the score 23-20. Grier and Juergens each followed a Leopard point with the 24th and 25th points of the match. Both were kills.

UW-Oshkosh and La Verne traded service errors to begin the third set before the trend of tied scores continued five more times until the Leopards put together a three-point spurt to make the score 11-8. They led by 15-11 headed into the timeout, however the Titans flipped a switch out of the break and went 7-1 to lead 18-16. Maren Motz and Perlberg added two kills in a 3-0 spurt that brought the Titans past the 20-point mark of the set

Perlberg registered her 22nd double-double in 36 matches, notching 16 kills on 41 attacks with seven errors and dug 13 attacks while adding a service ace and four blocks. Perlberg, who had reset the UW-Oshkosh single-season total attacks record in the semifinal, extended her record past Jean Harmsen's 1997 mark of 1,429 with 41 in the championship match for a total of 1,472 on the season.

Juergens also reached double-digit kills for the 19th time with 10. She scored twice from the service line, had four digs, and blocked a shot.

In their final match in yellow and gold, Izzy Coon and Jaclyn Dutkiewicz registered 17 and 13 assists, respectively. Dutkiewicz added 13 digs and Coon had eight.

Lauren Grier joined Perlberg with four block assists and Borrowman tallied three total (one solo).

Callie Panasuk was the third Titan with double-digit digs with 10 to cap off her fantastic freshman campaign.

After the championship concluded, Coon, Grier, Panasuk, and Perlberg were all named to the all-tournament team, while Perlberg was selected as the championship's most outstanding player.

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