Statistics
BIDDEFORD, Maine -- The University of New England survived an opening set with a negative hitting percentage and then cruised in a 3-0 triumph (25-23, 25-17, 25-13) over Saint Joseph's College of Maine in women's volleyball action on Thursday evening (Sept. 28) playing on Coach's Beaudry's Court inside the Harold Alfond Forum.
For the Nor'easters (6-4), who now have a pair of victories over the Monks (5-9) this season, it was a balanced offensive effort.
Kendall Gallaugher and
Ellijah Hanley both tallied seven kills, and Gallaugher did so on just 12 swings (.500 attacking).
Hannah Nowell put down six kills against one miscue, and
Viktoria Pavlyuk added five winners. A double-double of 18 assists and match-high 12 digs came from
Kassidy Bradshaw, who also notched five of the team's season-best 16 service aces.
Taressa Szewczyk dropped in four more aces, to go with seven digs.
Kailyn Reilly stood tall at the net, factoring in seven of UNE's eight blocks.
On the SJC side, Nadia Sixto had nine kills, largely with the help of 14 assists from Kailyn Chamberlin. Abby Jerome totaled nine digs.
Early in the 1st, a trio of aces by Pavlyuk fueled a 5-0 span that established the widest margin of the set (8-4). But the Nor'easters could not shake the Monks, as play went back and forth with seven lead-changes and nine ties along the way. The visitors had the longest stretch of unanswered points (6) to take a 13-11 edge, and St. Joe's pulled ahead late (23-21) on back-to-back kills by Sixto. Kills from Gallaugher and Nowell brought things back even (23-all), though, and a couple errors from SJC sealed the frame.
UNE hit -.051 during the initial session, but a 7-2 advantage at the service line allowed the hosts to stay in it.
The squads traded most of the points in the first half of the 2nd (14-13) until a 9-2 run by the Nor'easters seized control. Reilly and Bradshaw combined for two blocks, Hanley and Szewczyk dialed up three aces, and both Bradshaw and Szewczyk registered kills to power the spurt.
Following five more lead-changes and the seventh tie of the 3rd (at 8-8), UNE rattled off eight straight to pull away -- Hanley accounted for 3.5 of the seven points won in the stretch. Another seven in-a-row capped off the match, which included two Bradshaw aces, two kills by Nowell, and one kill apiece for Pavlyuk and Gallaugher, who then shared in the final block. The Nor'easters brought it home with a .333 attacking rate in the set.
UNE has the weekend off and will resume Commonwealth Coast Conference play on Wednesday (7 p.m.) versus Wentworth Institute of Technology.
