ST. DAVIDS, Pa.– Eastern University Women's Volleyball won the final three sets to claim four set win over the third-seeded York College Spartans and advance to Saturday's MAC Commonwealth Championship match at Messiah University. In changing the momentum of the match with a 25-5 second-set win,
Bridgette Kelly had four blocks, three, aces and two kills as the Eagles hit .533 in the frame.
The Eagles (19-8), who last failed to make a conference final in 1995, started slowly. The Eagles made a run with
Elle Jiron-Bujanda at the service line to tie the score at 12-12, but Spartans made a pass to get out of that rotation and handled the Eastern serves the rest of the way en route to a 25-15 win. The Spartans (10-21) hit .438 in the frame and passed well enough to sideout successfully on 11-of-15 opportunities. Jennifer Taylor and Georgianna Kahley each had four kills. The Eagles did not have an ace in the first set and hit just .147.
The second set looked completely different.The Eagles jumped to an 8-2 lead. Kelly then took over the match. The senior middle hitter had four blocks and two kills in a six-point run with Jiron-Bujnada at the service line.
Hannah Pringle put down a kill for a sideout and
Grace Cooper delivered an ace to make it 18-3. York earned a sideout and scored once on serve before Kelly closed out the set with three aces in five points. With Eastern blocking well, York was only successful on four-of-25 sideout chances in the set.
The Spartans found their feet and played point-for-point in a very competitive third set. The Spartans got points from three straight servers and went up 18-14. A service error gave the Eagles the serve down three with Pringle and Kelly rotated out.
Trinity Gruber started a run with an ace, and the Eagles briefly grabbed the lead at 19-18. The regained the lead at 20-19, but a sideout and a three-point run with
Viviana Fragoso at the service line took the Eagles to a 23-20 lead.
Natalie Saxton had a kill and two blocks in the final five points on the way to a 25-21 win.
Grace Casagrande had seven of her 27 digs in the third and Pringle put down four kills and had three blocks.
Fragoso put the Eagles up early in the fourth with a three-point run at the line. Saxton opened the set with a kill and Pringle added two more. The set was tied at 6-6 when Grace Coope started a run of five-straight Eastern servers to score points. Fragoso wound up serving 12 times in the 25-11 win. Casagrande had 13 more digs and Pringle and Saxton each had five kills. Jiron-Bujanda had 15 of 43 assists in the final set.
"Before the match," Head Coach
Mark Birtwistle said. "We talked about being mentally tough and resilient. We have been that in the past, and after the first set, we had to remind them. Bridgette had a really good stretch there and then we had other people step up as the match went on. I think they [York] came in knowing they needed to be very aggressive with their serving, and they did a good job passing in the first set. Our passing got better as the match went on, and we got some big points on blocks."
Kelly finished the match with eight kills, eight blocks, and three aces, and Pringle had 14 kills and seven blocks. Saxton reached double-figures in kills for the first time since 2022 and added four blocks. Cooper had 11 digs.
The Eagles will play Messiah at 7:00 PM on Saturday. The Falcons rolled to a three-set win over fourth-seeded Stevenson. Messiah last played in a MAC Commonwealth final in 2016.
