New York, N.Y.- The Hunter College women's volleyball team defeated cross-town rival, Baruch in the semifinals round of the City Univeristy of New York Athletic Conference tournmanent on Thursday evening at the Hunter Sportplex.

The 3-0 win pushes the Hawks to 19-9 overall and a perfect 7-0 in conference play this season. As the Bearcats fall to 15-15, Hunter advances to the CUNYAC Championship game where they will take on no. 2 seeded Brooklyn College on Friday evening at 6 p.m. in search for yet another conference title to close out the Purple and Gold's historic season.

THe Hawks logged 35 kills on the night compared to Baruch's 27, lead Mariam Ouattara and Mariapaz Lojano who each added eight a piece. The conference Rookie of the Year, Bethany Tomaneng added 24 assits to lead all players for the night, as she lived up to her title. Erin Dugan and Nadia Lau would each contribute adding 11 digs each on the night. 

The match opened up with Baruch hopping out to at 6-3 start but the Hawks fought back to score the next 10 points, marked by three services aces by Lojano. Despite the Bearcats efforts, the deficit was too large and Hunter took the first set, 25-17.

Set no. 2 started off in a back-and-forth battle, eventually coming to at tie at 8-8. Hunter then exploded on a 11-3 run to put themselves up 19-12. The Bearcats would add an additional seven points in the set but they were plagued by errors as the Hawks offense was unbreakable and the home team went up 2-0 with 25-19 win.

In the final set of the match, the Hawks jumped out to an early 6-1 lead. Not ready for their season the end, the Bearcats tied it up at 13 and even took the lead at 20-18. With the championship game in sight, Hunter battled back, scoring four straight points including two kills from Second Team All-Star, Pearl Mensah. She would add another kill and a block in tandem with Isabella Williams who would log the final kill to send Hunter to their next CUNYAC Championship.