In both the 2006 and 2007 seasons, the volleyball team was awarded the top seed at the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament and cruised to back-to-back championships without losing a set. However, Brandeis will not make the attempt for an ECAC three-peat. The volleyball team decided it will not participate in the tournament this postseason, with team health being the overriding factor in the decision, coach Michelle Kim said. This signals the end of the 2008 season, since Brandeis did not earn a National Collegiate Athletic Association Tournament bid.

"We only have nine players on the team. It's a long season; [it's] a lot of matches for our players to go through; and a lot of players are experiencing chronic overuse injuries," Kim said of the team's decision. "We had to put our players' health first and thought it was the best decision to make."

Kim said that if the team had made the NCAA tournament, "it would have been a different story," and the team might have decided to compete in the NCAAs.

"Having our goal be going to the NCAA tournament and having that fall short, we just thought that the health of our players comes first," she said.

After declaring its interest in competing in the tournament a few weeks ago, Brandeis decided to withdraw from ECAC contention on Thursday prior to the team's two-day University Athletic Association tournament. Kim met with her three captains-outside hitter Lorraine Wingenbach '09, libero Violette Ruggerio '09 and right-side hitter Piera Carfagno '10-before discussing the issue with the team.

Per ECAC policy, teams had to withdraw from the tournament by last Friday. Participating in the ECAC tournament would have marked a quick turnaround for the Judges, since the tournament was slated to start on Wednesday.

With the team not returning from the UAA tournament in St. Louis until last Sunday evening, Kim said she felt there might not be enough time to recover. If the Judges had advanced out of the opening round of the ECAC tournament, they would have played on Saturday, as well.

"With [the] injuries we have had this season, we need to protect the health of the players that have to continue [to play] Brandeis volleyball," Wingenbach wrote in an e-mail.

"I would have liked to end my volleyball career on a win, but I won't remember the last game I played in. I will remember all the great games throughout the last [four] years that I have been fortunate enough to be a part of," she added.

The Judges concluded the season with a three-set loss to Carnegie Mellon University in the third-place match of the UAA championships at Washington University in St. Louis last Saturday. Brandeis finished 19-13, including 5-6 in conference play.

-Julie Ganz contributed reporting