ST. DAVIDS, Pa. - Eastern Women's Volleyball batted hard in a pair of tough matches against quality opponents on Saturday, but fell in four sets to Lynchburg and later in three sets to DeSales on Senior Day.
Alexis Standford collected her 1,000th career kill in the first set against Lynchburg and finished the day with 28 kills against the Hornets and Bulldogs.
Jessie Schreiber collected 14 kills in the two matches, and
Grace Cooper finished the afternoon with 25 digs, 18 of which came against the Hornets.
Standford, who entered the day with 994 terminations, collected four in the opening set. The Eagles built an early 4-2 lead, but the Hornets answered back with five straight points to take a lead they would not relinquish. The lead hovered between four and six points throughout the set before the Eagles cut ties with 20-17 late in the set. The Hornets hung on to win 25-19.
Late in the second set, Standford sixth kill gave her 1,000 for her career, 570 of which came in an Eastern uniform. Standford, who transferred in from Grove City last year, has been an impact player for the Eagles since her first match, finished with 16 kills against the Hornets. She was the second senior to achieve a significant milestone this week, following Cooper, who recorded her 1,000th dig against Alvernia on Thursday.
The Eagles battled back to win the third set 25-23. Standford finished with another six kills, while Schreiber finished with two. After the two teams battled to a 9-9 tie, the Eagles rolled to a 20-14 lead with an 11-5 run. Standford had five of her six kills in the third set during that surge. The Hornet crawled back to make to make it 23-23, but after an attack error, Standford slammed home her sixth kill of the set to make it a 2-1 match.
The Hornets built an early lead in the fourth set and held it despite a late Eastern rally. A
Veronica Faber kill cut the Eastern deficit to 23-20, and another Standford termination made it 24-21, but the Hornet were able to close it out on the next point. Faber finished the Lynchburg match with nine kills
Standford finished with 16 kills, while Schreiber finished with eight. After waiting for her opportunity, Schreiber has blossomed in her senior year, working hard throughout the offseason to become one of Eastern's top playmakers throughout the course of the year. Cooper finished the match with 18 digs, extending her double-digit digs streak to 23 matches. Cooper, following in the footsteps of Grace Casagrande,
Viviana Fragoso, and others before her, has been exceptional in her first full season as Eastern's libero.
In the second match of the day, Eastern built an early 16-12 lead against the Bulldogs. However, DeSales rallied back, and the two teams traded points. A Schreiber kill and a DeSales attack error gave the Eagles set point, but again, DeSales battled back with four straight points to win the set 26-24.
The Eagles never recovered after that first set loss. DeSales built an 11-3 lead in the second set en route to a 25-21 win. In the final set, the match was all square at 11-11, before the Bulldogs embarked on a 9-1 to grab the momentum and ultimately win the set, 25-17. Standford, finished with another 12 kills, while Schreiber recorded eight.
Eastern (13-11, 7-0) returns to the NEST Wednesday for a critical match with Stevenson. The winner will earn the top and hosting privileges for the MAC Commonwealth Tournament.
