ST. DAVIDS, Pa.- Eastern University Volleyball has reached a
Conference Final in each of the past 17 seasons. The Delaware Valley
Aggies were playing in their first post-season tournament since 1988.
There is something to be said for experience. The No. 4 Eagles cruised
to a 3-0 home win over the upstart Aggies.
Delaware Valley (21-8) earned the fourth seed in the Freedom Tournament with a 4-3 mark in the league.
From
the outset, the Eagles were dominant in the service game. They put the
Aggies under enormous pressure with a variety of jump serves and short
floaters. Without the ability to get into a rhythm in serve receive, Del
Val hit more errors than kills in the match. Eastern recorded 10 aces
in the match.
On the other side, the Eagles received serve with
stunning accuracy. The Aggies scored only two points on their own serve
for the entire match.
"We sided out 100% twice," junior libero
Kelly Groff announced. For the first time, the Eagles obtained their
goal twice in a match. Groff led the Eastern defense with 17 digs and
was flawless in serve-receive.
"Coach always talks about serve
receive and it setting up the game." senior setter Maria Horning
commented, "So whole lot of credit goes to Kelly and Nikki and the rest
of them. When we play big games it is a side-out game and the passing
needs to be great."
The Eagles hit .370 on the way to a 25-12
win in the first set. Kearby Benak and Rachel Wenger each had three
kills to lead a balanced attack in the set.
Eastern was perfect in
the side-out game in the second set as Courtney Reinhold powered seven
kills, two blocks, and an ace to lead the Eagles to a 25-9 win is set
two. Reinhold finished the evening with ten kills on 17 swings.
Freshmen Lauren Sproles and Amy Guarino each recorded three kills in the third set as the Eagles hit .500 in a 25-8 win.
Wenger
finished with an impressive eight kills on 12 swings and four Eastern
players recorded five kills. Janel Gluch had seven kills to pace the
visitors.
Eastern will host second seed DeSales University at a to
be determined time on Saturday. That match can be viewed live on Eagle
vision at bit.ly/eagle_vision
Box Score
