Box ScorePhotosBEVERLY, Mass. -- Tori McIntyre (CCC Player of the Year) and Lauren Sheehan (CCC 2nd Team) combined for 28 kills to lead third-seeded Endicott College to a 3-1 victory over sixth-seeded University of New England in the opening round of the 2015 Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Women's Volleyball Championship which started Tuesday evening (Nov. 3) at MacDonald Gymnasium. Set scores were 25-19, 25-8, 22-25, and 25-7.
The Gulls (22-9) advance to face No. 2 Gordon College on Thursday, while the Nor'easters end their season at 6-17.
Endicott paired a .319 attack percentage with 11 blocks, and held UNE to a -.031 hitting clip to secure the win. Hayley Knapp (CCC 3rd Team) added eight kills against no errors, and added a solo block to go with six block assists -- the same number of rejections that McIntyre had a hand in putting down. Mareena Clotfelter and Alleigh VandeMerkt (CCC 2nd Team) dialed up 45 assists for the offense. Defensively, Sheehan and Cydney Pierce (CCC 2nd Team) each had 14 digs and VandeMerkt had 11 more.
Grayson Szczepaniak (CCC 2nd Team) led Big Blue with eight winners and an additional six came from both
Courtney Lambrese (CCC 3rd Team) and
Emily Rumery.
Kristen Falcinelli set-up 18 assists and
Brittany Morrison totaled as many digs for the match-high.
A kill from Lambrese and two EC errors leveled the first set at 18-all, but the hosts recorded five straight points out of a timeout to gain an advantage.
The Nor'easters stuffed an Endicott attack with a block to make it 7-5 in the second frame, but the Gulls surged forward with 11 unanswered points -- including four kills by Kelli Sugrue and three from McIntyre -- to seize control.
In the third, play went back-and-forth until UNE put four consecutive points up on the board to take a 21-18 edge. Four times EC got within a couple down the stretch, but three of those instances were countered with kills by Big Blue and eventually forced another set.
That momentum was short-lived, however, as Endicott claimed the initial nine points of the fourth and never looked back.
