A slow start fueled by attacking errors and a relaxed defense forced the AU women’s volleyball team to drop it’s first set at home in over a month, but the team rallied back and pulled out a 4-1 victory over Navy on Tuesday night. The Eagles used quick starts to the second and third sets and a stronger defensive block presence to wear down the midshipmen and earn another conference win.
AU (20 -6, 11-0 PL) prevailed in the final three sets with scores of 25-19, 25-13, 25-21 to remain perfect in Patriot League play with five games remaining on the regular season schedule.
The Eagles started the first set slowly and lost eight of the first 12 points. The Mids (6-18, 4-7 PL) never trailed in the first set and overpowered the AU defense with an attacking percentage of .469. The Eagles made five errors in the first set and only hit .189 for the set.
“Navy had won their last four in a row, so they came ready to play,” head coach Barry Goldberg said. “They played great defense the first time we played them [on Oct. 6]. This team [Navy] was getting a lot of easy kills, and we weren’t [in the first set]. They played better defense than us to start.”
Freshman outside hitter Aleksandra Kazala led AU with 13 kills and 14 digs. Senior outside hitter Allison Cappellino added 13 kills and 12 digs, and senior setter Monika Smidova tallied 36 assists, five kills and four service aces.
Smidova earned a series of consecutive aces to start the second and third sets, and the Eagles build off her success, improving their defensive efforts along the way as well. The Mids hitting percentage dropped to .103 in the second set and -.065 in the third set, while the AU defense recorded nine blocks in the two sets. The Eagles also capitalized on 15 Mids attacking errors to claim the second and third sets.
The Eagles and the Mids both struggled in the fourth set, with neither team hitting above .200. Navy proved even less efficient however, committing ten attacking errors in the fourth set alone. AU built a lead as large as six points in the set before the Mids closed late to make the score 23-21. The Eagles won the final two points on a Smidova kill and a Navy error to claim the victory and end the Mids’ four-match winning streak.
“We were able to hold them down defensively [in the latter sets], and it made a big difference,” Goldberg said. “Our defense picked up and was able to make it a little more difficult for them. We weren’t our sharpest tonight, but it was enough to get through.”
Senior outside hitter Kristyna Lindovska added nine kills and sophomore middle blocker Loren McKenzie, seeing extended time due to the injury suffered by sophomore middle blocker Erin Swartz on Friday, recorded seven kills and two solo blocks.
With the win, AU finished a congested portion of the schedule with three victories in five days. The Eagles travel to play back-to-back matches against Holy Cross on Friday Oct. 30 and Army on Saturday Oct. 31 before finishing the season with three straight home matches.
“We’ve got two more tough matches coming up real soon, there’s a lot of volleyball once we get to this end [of the season],” Goldberg said.
