BALTIMORE, MD – In a showdown between the tournament's top two seeds, it was the Johns Hopkins women's volleyball team sweeping Gettysburg 3-0 (25-18, 25-20, 25-23) in Goldfarb Gym Sunday afternoon to secure the program's seventh consecutive and 10^th overall Centennial Conference Championship. The win clinches the Blue Jays an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, marking the seventh straight year they have reached the NCAAs.
 
Hopkins got contributions from across the board on the attacking side, paced by a team-high nine kills from Alice Yu, with Chidinma Onukwugha (8), Simone Adam (7) and Pamela Chiakpo (6) each playing a major factor in the win as well. Helena Swaak finished the match with a game-high 33 assists to pair with six digs and a career-best five blocks, while Carlsen and Evelyn Batista shared the team-lead at 11 digs apiece with Yu also registering five rejections.
 
Swaak's efforts across both the semifinal win over Franklin & Marshall and the championship were enough to earn her the Centennial Conference Tournament MVP award. The sophomore averaged 12.2 assists, 2.7 digs and one block per set across both wins to grab the award for the first time.
 
After Chiakpo tallied the first point of Sunday's Championship, it was Gettysburg (24-4, 9-1 Centennial) using a 4-1 run to jump out to an early lead. Sparked by an Adam-kill, however, a 6-0 run from Hopkins gave the Jays back the lead at 8-4. Hopkins continued to pull away with a kill from Onukwugha making it 14-9 before Gettysburg began its climb back. After the Jays had gone back up four at 15-11 the Bullets scored three of the next four to make it a two-point set, but it was Hopkins with a response once again, putting the set out of reach with a 4-0 run to go up 20-14. Gettysburg got the advantage to four, but a Chiakpo ender closed out the set 25-18 and put the Jays ahead 1-0 after one.
 
Set 2 started similarly, with the Bullets taking a quick 6-2 lead, but Hopkins had the answer once again with a kill from Adam igniting an 8-0 run. Yu was all over the burst, totaling three kills and one block to help the Jays retake the lead at 10-6. Gettysburg refused to go away, cutting the lead to one on two occasions before a 4-0 run that started with back-to-back Yu kills ended the set 25-20.
 
Sunday's final set started with a trio of service errors to put Hopkins up 2-1 before the Bullets scored four of the next five to go ahead 5-3. The frame became one of runs from that point on, with the Jays using a 7-1 run followed by a 6-2 Gettysburg run to level the game at 12-12. A 4-0 run shot Hopkins ahead 16-12 before a service error kickstarted a 6-0 response from the Bullets to give them their first lead since it was 5-3.  Not wanting to see a fourth set, a 7-2 run that featured a trio of kills from Onukwugha put the Jays ahead 23-20, with another service error ending the set and match, 3-0.
 
With the win the Blue Jays are headed back to the NCAA Tournament, and will find out who they will face off against Monday, Nov. 13 at 1 p.m. during the NCAA Selection Show.