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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – The NCAA Women's Volleyball Tournament Committee finalized its seeds for this week's Championship Rounds of the 2018 NCAA Tournament late Sunday night. Eight teams are set to converge on the final host-site at Duquesne University's A.J. Palumbo Center, located in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa., on Thursday, November 15. The announcement had shades of last fall from the perspective of at least two programs, as the 25^th-ranked Ithaca College women's volleyball team was awarded the six-seed and is locked in for a Quarterfinal Round rematch against No. 9 Emory.
 
Last November, the Bombers shocked the Eagles, who entered the 2017 NCAA Championship as the second-seed, in a thrilling four-setter at Calvin College's Van Noord Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich. Ithaca will look to replicate that performance again when it faces a red-hot Emory team that has seemingly risen to another level this postseason. The Eagles ride a six-match winning streak into Thursday, sweeping through the 2018 UAA Tournament with wins over Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon and Chicago to earn the conference's automatic bid. The impressive form continued this past weekend in the Mount Berry, Ga., Regional, as the Eagles swept through a formidable slate that included nationally-ranked programs in No. 4 Colorado College and No. 22 Mary Hardin-Baylor. Overall, the Eagles are 27-6 on the year and are keyed by a strong host of returning talent that IC should be quite familiar with.
 
Emory certainly has a championship-level pedigree. The Eagles have five all-time NCAA Final Four appearances, with all of those runs coming within the past 15 years. However, all that goes out the window when play gets underway on Thursday. Unlike last season, when Ithaca and Emory faced each other in the first match of the weekend, the two squads will not meet until the third match of the day this coming Thursday, with match time tentatively scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
 
Joining Ithaca and Emory in Pittsburgh, Pa., are a strong collection of talented programs from around the nation.
 
No. 1 Calvin College enters as the top overall seed on the weekend. The Knights have been the wire-to-wire consensus top-ranked team in the AVCA Poll this season and certainly have the credentials to back it up. Suffering only one defeat on the year, a five-setter against nationally-ranked Thomas More in mid-October, Calvin blew through the remainder of its schedule to capture the MIAA Championship. The Knights punched their ticket to Pittsburgh in impressive fashion, besting Greenville and No. 18 Wisconsin-Whitewater to set up a heavyweight rematch against No. 3 Wittenberg in the Regional Championship. While the Tigers bested the Knights at Van Noord Arena last season to earn a berth in the National Championship match against eventual-2017 Champion Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Calvin extracted revenge this past Saturday in a five-set thriller that lived up to the hype and then some. The Bombers are certainly familiar with Calvin, as the two squads faced off in a highly competitive battle during the season's opening weekend. Calvin has now made it to the Quarterfinals in seven of the past nine seasons.
 
The Knights will face an upset-minded eighth-seeded Aurora squad that has been one of the surprises of the tournament to-date. Earning the automatic bid out of the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC), the Spartans rolled to three victories over nationally-ranked opposition at the Chicago, Ill., Regional Site. First, the squad shocked No. 12 Trinity (Texas) in straight-sets, before outlasting the hosts No. 10 Chicago in a five-setter. The Spartans punched their ticket to the Quarterfinal Round with a four-set victory over No. 11 Illinois Wesleyan on Sunday. Aurora is the first team in the history of the NACC to win an NCAA Tournament match and is now set to make its first Quarterfinal appearance when play gets underway in the 12:30 p.m. match on Thursday.
 
The four-five battle is slated for 3:00 p.m., as fourth-seeded Wisconsin-Eau Claire battles fifth-seeded Babson.
 
The Eau Claire Blugolds are set for their first-ever NCAA Quarterfinal appearance after a fantastic run through the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC). The squad captured the conference's automatic berth and certainly showed out at the Saint Peter, Minn., Regional Championships this past weekend. Highlighting Eau Claire's run was its Second Round match, as the Blugolds shocked defending 2017 Champion Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in the Regional Semifinal. Eau Claire captured the Regional Championship the following afternoon with a four-set win over Saint Benedict (Minn.).
 
Babson is also slated for their first Elite Eight appearance, fresh off capturing the Babson Park, Mass., Regional Championship this past weekend. IC has some familiarity with this outfit, as it was the Beavers that the Bombers faced in the Regional Championship of last year's tournament up in Potsdam, N.Y. Much like Ithaca and Emory, Babson swept its way through the Regional Rounds, besting Mount Saint Vincent, Wellesley and 23^rd-ranked NESCAC Champion Bowdoin in the Regional Championship yesterday afternoon.
 
Ithaca also is familiar with the second-seed in this weekend's championship bracket, as No. 6 Juniata also rolls into Thursday with a head of steam. Juniata was also a part of the field for the Bomber Invitational during the season's opening weekend. Although the Eagles dropped matches to both Calvin and Ithaca in tight five-setters during that first weekend of September, Juniata has lost just one other match this year and comes rolling into Thursday on a 25-match winning streak. The Eagles earned their berth to Pittsburgh with a four-set victory over No. 7 Thomas More on Sunday in their Regional Championship played on Juniata's home court in Huntingdon, Pa. It will be the 28^th time the Eagles have advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinal Round; however, it is the first time since 2010 for the program.
 
Juniata's opponent in the Quarterfinal Round is another team that IC has faced earlier this season in NESCAC at-large Wesleyan (Conn.) University. Like Aurora, Wisconsin-Eau Claire and Babson, Wesleyan is a first-time qualifier to the final-site of an NCAA Tournament, earning the seventh-seed when play gets underway Thursday. The Cardinals made an impressive run through the Providence, R.I., Regional, dispatching Kean and Springfield to earn a date in the Championship Match and a rematch against No. 2 Johnson & Wales (R.I.). Wesleyan lost to the Wildcats in a five-set heartbreaker during the Regional Semifinals last fall, but gained sweet revenge on Sunday with a four-set triumph that dealt Johnson & Wales its first loss since the season opener.
 
No. 6 Juniata and Wesleyan will play in the final match of the day on Thursday, which is slated to begin at 8:00 p.m.
 
For the Bombers, their regular-season schedule could not have played out much better in preparing the squad for this weekend. IC has already seen half of this weekend's field this season, posting the victories over Juniata and Wesleyan and holding a loss to Calvin within the season's first two weekends. Going back to last year, the Bombers can add both Babson and Emory to the victory list as well.
 
The Bombers certainly seemed to recapture that postseason form that carried the program within a whisker of last season's NCAA National Championship. Ithaca swept through its Regional Championship, which was the program's first NCAA Tournament volleyball on its home court since 2004. IC dispatched NECC Champion Southern Vermont and MAC Commonwealth Champion Stevenson in three-setters to advance to the Regional Championship Match and a rematch against Carnegie Mellon. The Bombers lost to the Tartans in a four-setter during the final weekend of the regular-season, but turned in perhaps its strongest all-around effort of the year on Sunday, flipping the script in a tight three-set victory over the UAA foe. Sunday's win marked just the second time in program history that IC has captured Regional Championships in back-to-back seasons, joining the Bombers' 1994-1995 teams.
 
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