BALTIMORE, Md.– In their final match of the weekend at the Hopkins Invitational ,Eastern University Womens' Volleyball hit .363 in to earn a three-set win over the University of Mary Washington Eagles. Eastern (9-5) dropped their morning match to the Cortland Red Dragons in three sets.
The win over the Eagles is the first for Eastern since 2015. Mary Washington bumped Eastern from the NCAA Tourrnament in the second round in 2022.
On this day, however, the Eastern Eagles had control. With passing on point, Eastern was successful on 31-of-42 sideout chances and all five starting hitters hit over .300 for the match.
Logan Martin had 11 kills on 22 attacks, and
Hannah Pringle had 12 kills and a .360 hitting percentage.
Bridgette Kelly had eight kills and three blocks and
Jailene Lugo had a season-high nine kills while hitting .375.
Eastern kept Mary Washington from scoring on serve and got big serving runs from
Grace Casagrande and
Viviana Fragoso to pull away to a 25-10 first-set win. Casagrande had six digs. Martin and Kelly each hit near .500 as the passing was good enough to allow
Elle Jiron-Bujanda to use her middles.
Jiron-Bujanda spread the ball around in the second set as well. She had 13 of her 36 assists in helping the Eagles to claim a 25-14 win in the second set. Eastern hit .455 with 16 kills.
Eastern ahd 17 more kills in taking the final set 25-16. Eastern did not have a receiving error in the match until Mary Washington's Sydney Aiken served an ace to pull within six at 20-14 in the third set.
Eastern hit .216 in their opening match against Cortland, but the Red Dragons were more efficient with their passing and rode the momentum of a 25-23 first-set win to a sweep. Pringle had 11 kills and Casagrande had 19 digs, but Cortland used aggressive serving and a big block to pull away.
"We ended the weekend on a good note." Head Coach
Mark Birtwistle said . "Our passing got back into the groove and our offense took care of the attack.It was good to see Mckenzie [Boyer] convert on her chances this weekend."
The Eagles return to league play on Tuesday at York and will host Immaculata University on Friday night in preparation for an important home match against Stevenson on October 9th.
