MEADVILLE, Pa. – The Allegheny College volleyball team battled back from 1-0 and 2-1 deficits to defeat Pitt-Bradford in five sets this evening from the Wise Center.
Allegheny (10-4, 0-0 NCAC) and Pitt-Bradford (4-11, 0-0 MACC) needed extra points in the first three sets (25-27, 29-27, 25-27) before the Gators flexed their muscle in the final two frames (25-12, 15-9) to earn the victory. The hosts' defense stiffened in the last two sets, holding the Panthers to hitting percentages of negative .057 and negative .043.
Senior outside hitter
Taylor Samuel and sophomore setter
Justine Kelly both registered double-doubles in the win. Samuel led Allegheny with 15 kills and added 19 digs for her ninth double-double of the season, while Kelly's fifth and first in seven matches came courtesy of 46 assists and 14 digs.
Sophomore libero
Terra Schall, the nation's leader in digs per set, added to her impressive resume this evening with a career-high 41 digs. She improved her total to 337 this season and has collected over 30 digs in five matches thus far.
Schall's classmate
Morgan Bush added 13 kills, giving the Gators two players in double-figures. Middle hitters
Leah Franzluebbers and
Sarah Swartz tallied nine and eight, respectively.
As a team, Allegheny served up 12 aces over the five sets. Kelly tallied half of those, including a stretch of three consecutive in the fourth stanza, while freshman
Rachel Slotterback and sophomore
Kylee Karczewski compiled three each.
Pitt-Bradford took the first set, 27-25, despite being down by four at 19-15. Bush did most of her damage in the opening frame, tallying six kills on 17 swings with two mishits. Samuel added five kills on a .308 hitting percentage in the stanza.
The Gators were able to respond with a 29-27 victory in the second set. It was the hosts who battled back from a late deficit in the frame as Allegheny trailed 22-15 before rattling off nine of the next 11 points to tie it at 24-all.
The Panthers came back with another 27-25 win in the middle stanza. Kirsten Platz of Pitt-Bradford dominated the frame as she tallied eight of her match-high 22 kills.
After three marathon sets, the Gators turned the tables with a stress-free 25-12 victory in the fourth set. Kelly served five of her six aces in the stanza, leaving work easy for the Allegheny hitters, who needed just nine kills to force a fifth frame.
The Gators clinched their 10th win of the season with a 15-9 victory in the final stanza.
Allegheny opened the frame with a kill from Franzluebbers and block by Bush and Swartz. The Panthers stormed back however, tallying the next four points to take a 4-2 lead.
Bush and senior outside hitter
Julia Weeks notched back-to-back kills to tie it at four, then the teams traded the next six points to make it 7-7.
That's when Slotterback stepped to the line for the Gators to spark a rally. After an attack error from Pitt-Bradford's Kaitlin McCann, the freshman served up an ace to push the lead to 9-7. Franzluebbers and Kelly combined for a block on the next rally, and then Slotterback found the floor on another serve to force a Panther timeout.
Samuel's kill out of the break made it 12-7 to the hosts, but Pitt-Bradford finally stopped the bleeding with a point. They could only get one more, however, as Kelly registered back-to-back kills to give Allegheny the win.
The Gators open North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) play this weekend with matches on Friday, Sept. 25 and Saturday, Sept. 26. Allegheny hosts DePauw at 7:00 p.m. on Friday and Wittenberg at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday as part of the college's Homecoming festivities.
