Bearcats boast four players on all-conference team
Bearcats seeded second as NECC Championship begins Friday

On the eve of the New England Collegiate Conference Championship, four Binghamton University volleyball players have earned spots on the 1999 all-conference team. The Bearcats (21-8) will take the second seed into the two-day, round-robin tournament, co-hosted Friday and Saturday by New Haven and Southern Connecticut State.

Sophomores Christine Van Schaick (Babylon/Babylon) and Sara DeClemente (Painted Post/Corning West) and senior Jeana Arthur (Endwell/Union-Endicott) were selected to the first team, and sophomore Sara Eckrich (Ithaca/Ithaca) was named to the second team. The four individual selections mark a dramatic increase from last season, when no BU player earned all-conference honors.

Van Schaick, an outside hitter, leads the eight-team conference and entire nation in service ace average (1.05 per game), and also ranks second in the NECC in digs per game (3.89). DeClemente, BU’s setter, is averaging a league-best 10.89 assists per game, while outside hitter Arthur leads BU with a 3.51 kills per game average. Eckrich ranks among the league leaders in attack percentage, and is averaging 2.71 kills per game from her outside hitter post.

Binghamton, primarily on the strength of its school-record 14-match win streak in September, has positioned itself for an ECAC tournament berth, and also may challenge 13-time conference champion New Haven this weekend at the eight-team NECC tournament. The Bearcats face Bridgeport and UMass Lowell in Friday night’s pool play, then take on Franklin Pierce Saturday morning. A semifinal pairing against Southern Connecticut State and title-match tilt with the nationally-ranked Chargers is the most likely scenario. On October 2, visiting BU took then-unbeaten New Haven to five games before falling, 3-2. Friday’s matches will take place at Southern Connecticut State, and Saturday’s will be hosted by New Haven.

The four-team ECAC bracket will be announced on Tuesday, November 16, with the semifinals and final set for Saturday, November 20.

The entire 1999 NECC All-Conference team is enclosed.