Wingate Captures Eighth-Straight SAC Volleyball Championship Title

NEWBERRY, S.C. – Wingate defeated Anderson 3-0 on Sunday in the 2013 Food Lion SAC Volleyball Championship final, claiming the program's eighth-straight tournament title.

Wingate swept Anderson by set scores of 25-23, 25-19 and 25-18. The Bulldogs – whose spot in the NCAA Division II Volleyball Championship is now a formality following the tournament title – have won 26-straight matches.

WU has now claimed 10 all-time SAC Tournament titles, while no other current or former conference member has more than five.

Wingate hit .252 as a team on Sunday, while holding Anderson to a .134 attacking accuracy. SAC Player of the Year Anna Hilton led the Bulldogs with 12 kills to earn tournament MVP honors for the second-straight season, while Shelly Stumpff had nine kills and Allison Rickher recorded seven. WU's Allison Cooke added a match-high 27 assists along with 15 digs.

Cooke and Rickher joined Hilton in earning All-Tournament Team selections.

Anderson, meanwhile, was paced by Priscilla Irizarry's 14 kills, Meghan Cautero's 26 assists and Alix Hooker's 19 digs. Irizarry and Hooker represented AU on the All-Tournament Team.

The sixth-seeded Trojans scored upsets over No. 3 Lenoir-Rhyne and No. 2 Tusculum in earlier rounds of the championship, but couldn't pull one more shocker over Wingate on Sunday. The Bulldogs' victory over AU, conversely, marked their 17th sweep of the season.

Rounding out the All-Tournament Team were Tusculum's Caitlyn Dean and Queens' Brittney Barren.

Wingate was the top-ranked team in all three NCAA Division II southeast region rankings prior to the SAC Championship. The Bulldogs will join what's likely to be several other SAC programs in learning their NCAA Tournament positions on Monday at 7:30 p.m. on a live NCAA.com selection show.