Trailing 0-2 to the top-seeded Edgewood College Eagles, the Dominican University women's volleyball team refused to quit, rallying for a thrilling five-set (21-25, 18-25, 26-24, 25-15, 15-12) victory to capture the 2015 Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference (NACC) Tournament championship and earn the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championships on Saturday night.  The NACC Tournament title is the Stars' third straight and fourth in the last six years.
 
Senior setter Christina Wilson (Homer Glen, Ill.), 41 assists and 27 digs for her 23^rd double-double of the season, capped the Stars' comeback and sealed the victory with her six kill of the night.
 
"I just try to keep balance the whole game," said Wilson following the match. "Even when other players get really up or down, I try to stay on that middle ground."
 
"In that third set, we started running our offense a little quicker and we were not afraid to hit everything," continued Wilson.  "We wanted to leave it all on the court."
 
Edgewood gave the Stars their best one-two punch in the first two sets, opening 10-3 leads in both sets before Dominican knew what hit them.  The Stars hit -.021 through the first two sets, committing 17 errors while managing just 15 kills on 91 attacks while Edgewood, behind six kills in the first two sets from Elizabeth Evans, hit .111 through the first two frames.
 
In the third set, Dominican's offense started to hit its stride, using a three-point run to open a 12-9 lead on a kill by Rosalyn Wyse (Greenville, Mich.).  The Stars' offense continued to click, with Wilson finding Kendyl Todd (Crete, Ill.) for a kill later in the set as Dominican opened a 21-15 lead.
 
The Eagles clawed back to 23-20 before a kill by Alex Kisten (Huntley, Ill.) set up set point for Dominican.  However, the Eagles scored four straight to knot the set at 24-24 before Kisten stopped the run with her fifth kill of the set and an Edgewood ball-handling error gave the Stars the set.
 
In the fourth set, Dominican's offense erupted, knocking down 12 kills while committing just two errors as the Stars never trailed in the set to force a deciding fifth set.
 
Dominican fed off the momentum gained in the fourth set, opening an 8-2 lead in the fifth before the Eagles came charging back.  With the Stars leading 12-5, Edgewood rattled off six straight points before an attack error stopped the run.  Edgewood got a quick sideout but gave Dominican the point back on a service error to set up set point at 14-12.  After a long rally, Wilson picked the right moment to dump an attack over the net and found the hardwood to seal the victory.
 
Dominican's Kisten finished with a match-high 13 kills while Todd added ten kills in the winning effort.
 
Defensively, Caitlen Foote (Dexter, Mich.) collected a career-high 40 digs.  Audrey Wyse (Greenville, Mich.) and Olivia Szuszkiewicz (Barrington, Ill.) added 16 and 12 digs respectively as the Stars posted a season-high 125 digs.  At the net, Dominican had seven total blocks and Todd was a part of six.
 
Evans and Emily Chausee led the Eagles, sharing team-high honors with 11 kills apiece while Rachel Tesch collected a match-high 43 digs.
 
With the win, the Stars improve to 25-9 overall and enter the pool of 64 teams in the NCAA Division III Women's Volleyball Championship for the fifth time in program history and fourth year in a row.  Dominican will find out the details of their 2015 tournament appearance on Monday, November 9, when the NCAA releases the field at 10:00 a.m. CT.