Baltimore, Md. --  The UMBC Volleyball team entered Sunday needing to win both of its matches to secure a spot in the America East Championship. The Retrievers did that and more as they dominated from start to finish in a pair of sweeps against Hartford (4-6, 4-6 AE). 

Emily Ferketic (Pittsburgh, Pa.) had 10 kills on .588 hitting with no errors, six digs and five blocks to lead UMBC (10-3, 9-3 AE) to the sweep in the first match (25-15, 25-13, 25-16). 

In the second match, freshman Beste Ayhan (Istandbul, Turkey) was perfect on offense as she had seven kills on seven attacks, while classmate Darina Kumanova (Plovdiv, Bulgaria) had 15 kills on .367 hitting. The score was never tied and the Retrievers never trailed in any of the three sets in the nightcap (25-18, 25-8, 25-18), as they hit .426 as a team for the match. 

Senior Anouk Van Noord (Amsterdam, Netherlands) was honored prior to the first match, and she exploded offensively to start her final match day at UMBC. She led the match with 14 kills on .312 hitting, while adding four digs and three blocks.

Kumanova had a double-double with 10 kills and 11 digs, while classmate Aysia Miller (Mililani, Hawaii) had 34 assists, four kills (.500 hitting), five digs and two blocks. Michaela De Marzi (Milan, Italy) had four kills and three blocks, and Ayhan had a kill and a match-best seven blocks. Loren Teter (Redondo Beach, Calif.) had a team-high 12 digs, and added four assists and two aces. 

De Marzi had a huge second match, finishing with eight kills on .438 hitting, with two blocks, two two digs and two assists. Van Noord had her ninth-consecutive match with double-digit kills, finishing with 11 on .400 hitting. Ferketic added six kills and two blocks, while Miller had 39 assists, seven digs and two kills. 

Teter and Paige Krenik (Foothill Ranch, Calif.) tied for the team lead in digs with nine, while Kayla Tomas (Silver Spring, Md.) came off the bench to add six digs. Six different Retrievers had an assist in the match, while five different players had a block. 

UMBC originally entered the weekend with two paths to the Championship match: 1. Win both matches against Hartford, or 2. Split and have New Hampshire lose one of their two matches (NJIT or UAlbany). On Saturday afternoon, however, UAlbany forfeited both of their matches this weekend. This eliminated the option of a split for UMBC to make the Championship, and meant that one loss put UNH in the title match via tie-breaker. The forfeits also opened the door for UMBC to claim a share of the regular season title, as they dropped UAlbany's conference record to 9-3, which is the same conference record UMBC finished the regular season with after the sweeps. 

The Retrievers will travel to New York to face defending champion UAlbany for the America East title on Friday, April 2. First serve is set for 7 p.m. and fans can watch the match on AmericaEast.TV.