AU Volleyball at Duke in NCAA Tournament First-Round Action

Nov. 30, 2007

2007 NCAA Tournament First-Round Notes

DURHAM, N.C. -The Storyline: The American University volleyball team will make its seventh-consecutive appearance in the NCAA Tournament under Head Coach Barry Goldberg and ninth overall when they take on No. 22 Duke Friday, Nov. 30, at 7 p.m. in Cameron Indoor Stadium. American earned its tournament berth with a 3-0 win over Colgate in the Patriot League Tournament championship.

Last Time Out: The American University volleyball team captured its seventh-consecutive Patriot League Tournament title with a 3-0 win over Colgate last Saturday, Nov. 17.

Game scores in the match were 30-23, 30-26 and 30-18. AU hit .430 as a team with 59 kills on 114 attempts. The offense was led by Tournament MVP Christina Nash who dished out 43 assists, recorded a .400 hitting percentage with four kills, dug four balls and scored one ace. Rubena Sukaj was the match's high scorer with 25 kills, had a team-high seven digs and finished the match with a .457 hitting percentage as she committed just four errors on 46 attempts. Ivana Cebakova also reached double-digits in kills with 10, dug six balls and assisted on four attacks. Claire Recht and Cassandra Ricketts each notched seven kills and hitting percentages of .600 and .462 respectively.

"We had a great performance from our entire group tonight," Head Coach Barry Goldberg said. "Anytime our team can score that many kills and commit that few a number of errors we can do some special things."

In the NCAA Tournament: American is seeking its first-ever win in the NCAA Tournament. The Eagles have made eight previous trips to the "Big Dance" but have never advanced past the first-round. In last year's tournament, American was seeded against No. 1 Nebraska and lost in four games, 16-30, 23-30, 30-28, 16-30.

Against Duke: American and Duke have played three times in their all-time series which now stands at 2-1 in favor of the Blue Devils. The last meeting between the two took place two years ago in the first-round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament. Duke won that match, 3-0. AU's lone victory in the series came at Duke in 2002, 3-2, in the Duke Classic. The first meeting between the schools, a 3-0 Duke win, was on opening night of the 1993 season.

Record Breakers: The members of this year's team have left their mark all over the AU volleyball record book. Rubena Sukaj became the program's all-time leader in kills per game (4.65) this year and is currently second all-time in aces per game (0.69) and third in kills (1,581). Chelsa Brooks will finish her career as American's all-time leader in total blocks (442), block assists (364) and ranked fifth in solo blocks (78). After just two seasons, Ivana Cebakova is AU's all-time leader in digs per game, averaging 3.81, and is closing in on fifth place for career digs (819). Christina Nash has the third-highest career assists total (2,728) in program history and is just on the outskirts of the top-five with an average of 8.62 assists per game.

As a team, AU broke the school record for block assists in a single season with 469. Sukaj notched the second-highest kills total and kills per game average in school history with a total of 615 and average of 5.54 respectively, while recording the third most attack attempts ever at 1,377. Claire Recht notched the highest single season blocks per game average (1.25) in program history, the second most block assists (112), and the fifth most total blocks (127). Nash tallied AU's fourth-highest hitting percentage at .393.