This Saturday the Haverford College volleyball team will make its ninth consecutive appearance in the Centennial Conference tournament, seeking its fifth straight crown which would put them in some exclusive company.
Only Gettysburg College has won five straight outright Centennial championships and furthermore, Haverford and Franklin & Marshall College are tied with four titles, so one more would place the Fords with the second most in conference history.
The top-seeded Fords bring a nine-match winning streak into Saturday's semifinal at noon against No. 4 Swarthmore College (18-10, 7-3 CC), who defeated Gettysburg in Wednesday's quarterfinal. Seven of those wins have come against conference opponents including a 3-1 (25-20, 25-19, 23-25, 25-19) win over the Garnet last week which locked up home-court advantage for this weekend.
In that victory, Jenine Abbassi had a career-high 17 kills to go along with an impressive .452 hitting percentage. At the net Haverford (18-12, 10-0 CC) totaled 10 team blocks, getting six from Olivia Coburn-Flynn and three each from Abbassi and Kelsey Cantwell. Caitlyn Tranquillo led the team on the floor with 21 digs while Kaelyn Anderson chipped in with 16 and Hayley Lowrance picked up 13 digs.
Haverford's offense has been running on all cylinders for the better part of the season, averaging a conference-best 12.33 kills per set. Cantwell leads the Fords with 3.10 per set and has been the definition of consistency the last three weeks. She has had at least 10 kills in her last eight matches, going for 16 once and 15 twice. On defense she has played a big role as well, recording eight or more digs six times in that span. The emergence of Laura Ramos on the outside has given the Fords a dual threat which keeps opponents on their toes. Ramos is second to Cantwell with 274 kills and a .203 hitting percentage. Ramos has reached double-digits in kills 16 times.
The offense has been steady thanks to the play of setter Kate Comey. She is leading all Centennial setters in assists for the third season in-a-row, handing out 1,053 which equates to 3.10 per set.
The Fords have also shown their dominance on the defensive side of the net with 197.0 blocks this season. Olivia Coburn-Flynn is second in the Centennial with 99.0 while Abbassi is ninth with 80.0.
A victory Saturday would pit Haverford against either No. 2 Johns Hopkins University (19-11, 8-2 CC) or No. 3 Franklin & Marshall (20-6, 8-2 CC) in Sunday's championship at 1 p.m. The Fords swept Hopkins Oct. 2 in Baltimore and took the Diplomats, 3-1 (26-24, 24-26, 25-12, 25-14), Oct. 15 at Gooding Arena.