Delaware Tech volleyball wins Region 19 title

The Delaware Technical Community College women’s volleyball team won the 2022 NJCAA Region 19 Division II Women’s Volleyball Championship Oct. 29 at Delaware Tech’s Stanton Campus in Newark, becoming region champions for the first time since 2016.

“I really believed from the beginning of the season that we were going to accomplish this,” said head coach Leigh DeSantis, who was named NJCAA Region 19 Division II Coach of the Year. “I felt like this team had the drive to get here as long as they were willing to put in the hard work.”

Delaware Tech sophomore Alexcia Sutton was named 2022 NJCAA Region 19 Player of the Year, and fellow sophomore Morgan Donahue joined Sutton on the 2022 NJCAA Region 19 All-Region Team. In two tournament games, Sutton had six aces, five assists and 41 digs. Donahue had 10 aces, 21 kills and 37 digs.

“This almost doesn’t feel real,” Sutton said. “This was such a good season, and all of these girls are so great.”

It’s an impressive turnaround for a program that finished the 2021 season with just five wins and was eliminated in the first game of that season’s region tournament.

“This feels amazing,” Donahue said. “We all worked really hard for this and we deserve it.”

Delaware Tech entered the tournament as the top seed and cruised to a 3-0 win over County College of Morris in the opening round. SUNY Ulster, a Region 15 team placed in the Region 19 tournament as the third seed, upset Harcum College in the other opening-round game to set up the tournament finals.

By virtue of being the last remaining Region 19 team in the tournament, Delaware Tech was assured the Region 19 championship regardless of the outcome of the final game. However, the team that won the final game would advance to the district tournament for a shot at qualifying for the national tournament.

Things got off to a rocky start as Delaware Tech went down 0-2, losing the first two sets by scores of 17-25 and 18-25.

“If you had asked me in the middle of the game if we had a chance to win it all, I may have questioned it,” DeSantis said. “Being down two sets meant we had to win three straight, and that’s really hard to do in volleyball. After the second set, I huddled with them and I told them, ‘You are the No. 1 seed, so it’s time to act like it and play like it.’”

Delaware Tech rallied behind solid serves from Donahue and fellow sophomores Isabella Denk and Kailee Gautier; well-placed balls at the net from Donahue, sophomore Isadora Reichner, and freshmen Paige Orth and Ashley Kelly; and game-saving digs from Sutton and Denk.

“We weren’t ready to be done,” Donahue said. “We had more to prove and more to show. I was just thinking of getting things done for my team, not just for me, but for all of us, to get us to districts.”

The district championship game will be against Montgomery College of Maryland Saturday, Nov. 5.

“This team is capable of anything and everything,” Donahue said. “We can go as far as we want, and we are going to go all the way.”

For more information on Delaware Tech Athletics, go to dtcc.edu/athletics or follow dtccathletics on Instagram.