SALISBURY, Md.– Eastern University Women's Volleyball improved to 2-0 on the year with a 3-0 neutral site win over Neumann University. The two former league rivals met on the opening night of a tournament at Salisbury University.
Logan Martin tallied twelve kills to pace a balanced Eastern attack.
After struggling from the service line in their home opener on Wednesday, the Eagles were accurate and aggressive from the line early. Eastern (2-0) finished the night with five aces and only five errors. The Knights were only able to side out 40 percent of the time in the opening set and the Eagles pulled away to a 25-17 win.
Natalie Saxton and
Jailene Lugo each had four kills in the opening set. Saxton finished the night with seven kills and no errors on only ten attacks. Lugo finished with eight kills and an outstanding .500 hitting percentage.
In the second set, Eastern jumped to a 6-1 lead with Martin at the service line. Neumann rallied to tie the set at 7-7 before the Eagles closed out the set on an 18-7 run. Seven different Eagles recorded kills as the team hit .367 in the 25-14 win.
The final set proved to be the most dramatic. The two sides went back-and-forth throughout, and the Knights built a 24-22 lead and were one point from forcing a fourth set. Martin closed the gap to 24-23 with a kill, and
Elle Jiron-Bujanda delivered a quality serve to set up another Martin kill and tie the set at 24. The Eagles closed out the match with a combined block from Lugo and Saxton.
Martin and Saxton were incredibly efficient in the final set. Saxton pounded three kills on four swings and Martin buried eight kills on 13 swings.
Grace Casagrande recorded six of her ten digs in the final frame. Jiron-Bujanda finished with 31 assists and 11 digs, and
Trinity Gruber tallied 11 digs to tie for match-high honors.
The Eagles hit .276 for the contest and were just under 60 percent on side-out percentage.
"In the first two set sets we took care of the ball and put pressure on their defense and sere receive," Head Coach
Mark Birtwistle said. "I was happy that our defense was able to make some in-game adjustments that worked to our advantage. Grace [Casagrande] held the defense together with ten digs and excellent work receiving serve."
Coach Birtwistle's young squad will take on the host Sea Gulls at noon and the McDaniel College Green Terror at two. Salisbury earned a 3-0 win in this evening's match-up between those two teams.
