INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Second-seeded Ohio Wesleyan (16-12) captured its third North Coast Athletic Conference Volleyball Tournament title with a 3-2 upset over top-seeded Denison (13-14) in the tourney championship final in Granville, Ohio on Saturday, November 16. As NCAC tournament champions, OWU earned the NCAC's automatic bid into the 2024 NCAA Division III Volleyball Tournament.

Ohio Wesleyan will travel to Whitewater, Wisconsin for the regional tournament. The eight-team regional will be played Nov. 21-23. The Battling Bishops will open the three-day regional tournament against the Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks (26-3), who earned the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's automatic bid. 

Thursday's first-round match will be the fourth meeting all-time between the two teams; The Warhawks are 3-0 against the Battling Bishops. The winner of the OWU/Whitewater first-round contest will move on to face the winner of Wisconsin Eau Claire (20-8) versus Northwestern-St. Paul (24-8) on Friday, November 22, in the second round. The two other first-round matchups at Whitewater will feature Wisconsin Platteville (25-6) versus Edgewood (24-9) and Washington University in St. Louis (28-6) versus Saint Benedict (15-11).

This will be Ohio Wesleyan's first NCAA tournament appearance. Whitewater will be making its sixth-straight and 35th overall national appearance and holds a 53-33 record (.616) in NCAA postseason play.

Under the leadership of 11th-year head coach Kirsta Cobb, Ohio Wesleyan is paced by senior Claire Solberg (Huron, OH/Huron), juniors Lily Bechina (Chicago, IL/Jones College Prep) and Bella Guzzetta (Boca Raton, FL/Spanish River) and sophomores Natalie Dieball (Cincinnati, OH/Lakota East) and Avery Krause (Cleveland, OH/Holy Name). As an outside hitter, Dieball leads the Battling Bishops with 360 kills (3.43/set) and 46 service aces (0.44/set), and has also tallied 271 digs (2.58/set), 27 blocks (0.26/set) and 19 assists (0.18/set). Bechina owns a team-high 830 assists (7.83/set), to go along with 283 digs (2.67/set), 80 kills (0.75/set), 22 service aces (0.21/set), and 50 blocks (0.47/set) from the setter position. Defensive specialists Guzzetta and Krause lead OWU in digs, Guzzetta owns a team-high 357 digs (3.28/set), to go along with 52 assists (0.48/set), while Krause averages a team-best 3.39 digs per set (353 digs) along with 43 assists (0.41/set) and 30 service aces (0.29/set). Solberg, a middle blocker, has compiled a team-high 118 total blocks (1.10/set), to go along with 212 kills (1.98/set) and 41 digs (0.38/set).