The No. 2 seeded UW Oshkosh women’s volleyball team swept No. 7 Calvin University (Michigan) in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Division III Tournament on Wednesday, Dec. 3 to advance to the Final Four for the first time since 2009 at the Shirk Center in Bloomington, Illinois. 

Samantha Perlberg led the team in kills with 23 on the day, while Izzy Coon and Riley Borrowman tied for the team lead in aces with two, respectively. Coon led in assists with 21 and Borrowman led in blocks with seven. Grace Juergens led the team in digs with 11. 

Entering the game, Calvin won the Bloomington Regional by beating UW-Whitewater and host Illinois Wesleyan University. UWO however shut down the Knights from the jump. 

Behind four kills from Perlberg and four Knights attack errors. The Titans jumped out to a 12-7 lead to start the first set. After Calvin cut the Titan lead down to three for a third time at 16-13. The Titans finished the set on a 9-0 run to win the first set at 25-13 behind three combined kills from Perlberg and Juergens along with five more Knight attack errors. 

For the rest of the game, it was a battle of scoring runs for both teams. In set two, UWO built a 10-5 lead behind five combined kills from Perlberg and Lauren Grier but a 7-1 Knights run got Calvin a 12-11 lead. For the rest of the set, both teams traded punches from there on out. However, with Calvin holding a 24-23 lead, UWO scored the final three points behind kills from Perlberg and Juergens to get to two first and win the second set at 26-24. 

Calvin had the Titans on the ropes to start set three. The Knights had an 11-5 lead on UWO to start. But a 7-2 run by UWO got the deficit within 13-12 and got the Titans back in the match. A 4-0 run later in the set by the Titans provided UWO the lead at 21-19. From there, the Titans never relinquished their advantage as UWO punctuated a 25-21 set three win and a sweep with back-to-back kills from Perlberg to end the match. 

UWO will now move forward with a match in the Final Four against the No. 6 seed Trinity University (Texas). It will be the first time that both UWO and Trinity played each other since 2023 when the Titans upset the Tigers who were ranked No. 2 at the time in a sweep.

The Titans’ Final Four match against Trinity will take place at 5 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN + and on 90.3 WRST-FM.