QUINCY, Ill. – Making a grand entrance in NCAA Tournament play, the Quincy University Hawks did such that Thursday night (November 17) in Pepsi Arena as the one-seed in the Midwest Region. The Hawks drew the eighth-seeded Northern Michigan Wildcats in the quarterfinals and swept the Wildcats (25-19, 25-17, 25-18).

In front of a hyped up Pepsi Arena crowd, that witnessed history. This was the first NCAA Tournament win in program history.

The Hawks will face fifth-seeded University of Missouri – St. Louis Tritons, who defeated Rockhurst University in straight sets at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 18^th.

Set 1
The Hawks used the momentum from the crowd to jump out to a 13-3 lead in the opening set. The offense was able to get in rhythm early as Emma Wijnbergen, Mattison Norris, Emily Rehagen and Alice Pavan all registered kills in that run. As NMU was attempting to claw back into the set, Norris notched three consecutive kills to give QU the 20-16 lead.

Norris led the team with 5 kills in the opening set. Meanwhile, the Wildcats were held to an attack percentage of .088.

Set 2
As impressive as the Hawks were in the opening set, they stepped it up some more in the second set. As a team, they registered 13 kills on 29 attempts and did not commit a single error.

The beginning of the set was back and forth as it took until the kill by Norris to make it 7-4 for the Hawks to take advantage of the momentum. The lead ballooned to 13-6 on kills by Wijnbergen and Rehagen. The set would be finished off with a kill by Wijnbergen.

Set 3
With the host team being up two sets to none, QU was searching for the quarterfinal sweep. NMU jumped out to a 7-4 lead, but then the QU offense came to life. A 7-1 run saw the Hawks take an 11-8 lead and never looked back. The Hawks finished off the set and the match scoring the final five points.

Match Leaders
Mattison Norris: 15 kills, .394%
Emily Rehagen: 11 kills, .375%
Makayla Knoblauch: 32 assists