HOBOKEN, N.J.— On the team's penultimate weekend of the regular season, Eastern University Women's Volleyball settled for a split in a pair of matches at Stevens Institute of Technology. Eastern (19-6) handled Worcester Polytechnic Institute in three decisive sets before dropping a hard-fought five-set decision to the host Ducks. In the two matches, Hannah Pringle had 43 kills. Viviana Fragoso posted a career-best 32 digs in the final match of the day.

Eastern hit .333 with 44 kills against WPI (10-15). Pringle pounded 19 and Veronica Faber put away seven balls on only 11 attacks. Sarah Furey dished out 26 assists and added three aces.

The Eagles hit .400 on the way to a 25-17 win in the first set and had five aces and a .480 hitting percentage in claiming a 25-9 second-set win. In the third set, the two teams traded points nearly the entire way before the Eagles pulled away to a 19-17 lead with a two-point run with Furey serving. The Eagles ran out of subs, but still managed to hold on for a 25-23 win.

Bouncing back to play the hosts, the Eagles dropped the opening set and were down 19-16 in the second set. Again out of substitutions, Eastern claimed the 25-23 win with Jessie Scheiber serving the final point. Pringle had eight kills on 17 swings and the Eagles hit .364 in the second set. The Eagles needed to hit that well because the Ducks hit .400 with 20 kills.

Stevens (18-9) flipped the script with a 25-23 win in the third.

Down 2-1, the Eagles broke open a close fourth with a five-point run with Fragoso at the service line. Eastern tied the score at 15 on a block from Schreiber and Faber. After a Stevens' hitting error, a couple Pringle kills, and a termination from Scheiber, the Eagles had a 19-15 edge. They held that lead to the finish to force a fifth set with a 25-22 win.

In their sixth fifth set of the year, the Eagles trailed by three at 7-4, but points on serve from Grace Cooper and Kallie Rogers tied the set at 10. The Eagles went down two before tying the set at 13. The Ducks scored the final two points to escape with a 25-23 win.

Against Stevens, Pringle had 23 kills and Alexis Standford had 16. Schreiber finished with seven kills and five blocks, and Faber had six kills and three blocks. With the 45 digs today, Fragoso goes over 400 on the year and she moves into the 17th spot on Eastern's career list.

"We executed well in our offense and serving during the first match against WPI,  Both middles got involved hitting a high percentage while adding seven blocks. That is a significant improvement for them and our team. Stevens was a good match by two teams that worked really hard. I thought our team stayed focused and gave themselves an opportunity to win the match despite down 2-1."

Eastern will host York College on Wednesday for the MAC Commonwealth finale for both teams. Eastern can secure the top seed the league with a win. The program will honor its two seniors before the match.