Friday, November 19, 2021
MAAC Championships
No. 2 Rider Broncs (17-11, 14-4 MAAC) vs. No. 7 Iona Gaels (10-17, 8-10 MAAC)
Location: Loudonville, NY – UHY Center
Time: 5 p.m.
Live Video – ESPN+
Live Stats – SienaSaints.com
 
What You Need To Know
- All matches at the MAAC Championships will be streamed on ESPN+.
- The Broncs reached the main draw of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1994 last season.
- Rider is the defending MAAC Champions, after winning three matches as the four-seed a season ago to claim the title.
-The Broncs won a program-record 14 MAAC matches to earn a program-best two seed in this year's tournament. The Broncs had previously finished third in 2004, 2018, and 2019.
- Morgan Romano (Oviedo, FL/Hagerty) and Anilee Sher (Poughkeepsie, NY/Spackenkill) were both named to First-Team All-MAAC honors by the league Thursday morning.
- For Romano and Sher, it is the third All-MAAC honor for each of them, joining Hailey Riede '19 as the only athletes in program history to earn the honors for three seasons.
- Rider has won five straight and eight of the last nine. Included in the five-match winning streak is a four-set victory over Iona.
- Romano set her season-high with 26 kills, then tied it two additional times during the five-match winning streak. Romano now has 1,164 career kills, good for fourth in program history.
- Romano is averaging 4.28 kills per set this season, second most in the MAAC. She is also leading the MAAC with 47 aces on the year.
- Sher ranks second in the MAAC, averaging 10.51 assists per set. Earlier this season she broke the program's career assist record and has produced 3,798 in her four seasons.
- In the final match of the regular season against Niagara, Sher set a single-match program record with 68 assists.
- In addition to Romano, Tori Schrader (Grantville, PA/Lower Dauphin) ranks ninth and Jillian Chan (Watchung, NJ/Watchung Hills Regional) ranks 10^th in the league in kills per set.
- Caprice Clarke (Toronto, Canada/Blythe Academy [Yorkville]) set a single-match program record with 14 blocks against Marist earlier this season.
- Clarke leads the MAAC in blocks per set this season, averaging 1.19.
- Pamela Loh (Cortlandt Manor, NY/Hendrick Hudson) had her first career double-double with 12 digs and 10 assists against Siena.
- Loh is eighth in the MAAC this season with an average of 3.91 digs per set.
- The Broncs put 10 student-athletes on the MAAC Volleyball All-Academic Team.
- Iona leads the all-time series over the Broncs 28-16, but Rider has won five-straight against the Gaels.
- The Gaels have won three of their last four matches including a win over top-seeded Fairfield last weekend.
- Iona's Hope Matschner ranks third in the conference in digs, averaging 4.77 per set.
- The winner of the Rider-Iona match will face the winner of the Marist-Quinnipiac match. The other half of the bracket features Fairfield, Siena, Canisius, and Niagara.