CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — 

The U.S. Coast Guard Academy volleyball team's 2025 season came to an end on Saturday with a straight set loss to Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Tournament semifinals. MIT won a competitive first set, 25-20, before taking the final two with ease be scores of 25-25 and 25-15.

The top seeded Engineers entered the match ranked 12th in the weekly American Volleyball Coaches Association poll. They improve to 26-3 with the win as they head to a fifth consecutive NEWMAC championship game with the opportunity to win their fourth conference title since 2020. Standing in their way will be #2 seed Babson College (22-6), who swept 3-seed Springfield by scores of 25-23, 25-24, and 25-21 to clinch their spot in the tournament final.

MIT was lethal on swings throughout the match for a .387 hitting percentage with 49 kills on 106 attempts, while the Bears hit .143 through 19 kills on 98 tries. The Engineers showed their dominance on both sides of the net through a 50-41 advantage on digs and a 9-5 edge on blocks. 

Sarah Somer (Cary, N.C.) went out with a bang in her final collegiate match, leading the Bears with 10.0 points on ten kills and just two errors on 19 swings for a .421 attack percentage. Somer's classmate and fellow captain Laila Baameur (Bakersfield, Calif.) totaled a match-leading 15 digs without a ball-handling error to close out an impressive senior season as the libero, and the freshman setting duo of Ava Ahokovi (Honolulu, Hawai'i) and Holly Davis (Sisters, Oreg.) combined for 23 assists to power the CGA offense, with Ahokovi recording 14 and Davis recording nine.

MIT benefitted from three double-digit points performances, the highest of which was 17.0 from Eileen Sadati on 12 kills, three service aces, and 2.0 blocks (one solo, two assists). Ali Gibbs had 14.0 on ten kills and 4.0 blocks (two solo, four assists), and Ella Zhou tallied 10.5 in a near double-double of ten kills and a block assist to go with nine digs. Kayleigh May had the match-high 41 assists while Daphne Gavros led the Engineers with ten digs.

The Bears had a 12-11 lead in the first set following kills by Abby Schweitzer (Emmaus, Pa.) and Sam Ventimiglia(Key West, Fla.) and an ace from Davis, but a responding kill by Sadati kicked off a 12-4 run to put the hosts in position for a 1-0 match lead. An errant serve from Zhou ended the run, and Coast Guard capitalized with kills by Ventimiglia and Ahokovi, but two more from Sadati clinched the opener in MIT's favor. The Engineers hit a match0low .333 in the set.

After falling behind early in the second, Coast Guard scored five while allowing one to put themselves at a 9-11 deficit. MIT responded with a 10-3 run to take full control of the set. Coast Guard scored back-to-back points to cut the hosting lead down to 21-14, but the Engineers proceeded to rattle off four, interrupted in the middle by a Gibbs serving error, to go up 2-0 in the match.

The third set saw the Bears tie it up at five after back-to-back Engineers errors, but the hosts quickly regained control with an 18-4 run which included a series of seven uninterrupted, five of which came from kills. Back-to-back kills by Somer interrupted MIT's flow and put the score at 23-11, but the Engineers cemented their NEWMAC finals appearance with a kill and a Bears attack error.

Coast Guard finishes the season with an 18-9 record. Next to Baameur and Somer, fellow seniors Mack Boose (Camden, N.C.) and Vickie Mancine (Chicago, Ill.) also finished their college careers with the loss. Baameur, coming off a performance at Smith College on Tuesday that made her just the sixth cadet-athlete in program history to record 500 digs in a single-season, made history again by becoming the 13th to reach the elusive 1,000 digs mark.