Box Score SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Junior Ashley Adams (Mystic) had successive kills to give the Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team the lead for good, and senior Allie Luppi (Tewksbury, MA) closed it out with one of the team's 17 service aces as the Warriors reached the .500 mark for the first time this year with a five-set victory over Western New England University Tuesday night.
A winner of four of its last five, Eastern (7-7) won by scores of 25-22, 18-25, 25-14, 28-30, 15-12. The five-set match is the sixth in the last 14 meetings between the program, with each team winning three times. WNEU is 7-5.
After Eastern failed to close the match out in losing the fourth set after leading 28-27, there were 11 ties in the fifth set before Adams put away to attacks on assists from junior transfer Fabiana Della-Monica (Newark, DE) to give Eastern a 14-12 lead, and Luppi ended the evening with her third service ace – the 17th by the team – of the match.
Adams had ten kills and led Eastern with a .258 attack percentage, and junior Kay Mullen (Fairhaven, MA) had 11 kills and junior Hannah Bryant (Avon) nine. Della-Monica, the national junior college leader in service aces two years ago, collected six aces to go along with 23 assists. Luppi dug up 34 balls and junior Amanda Tyler (Longmeadow, MA) 13. Freshman setter Leah Sopneski (Deep River) followed Della-Monica with 17 assists.
Olivia Lathrop of WNEU led everyone with 19 kills and a .486 attack percentage, with Carly Skibinski and Kelsey Armstrong adding ten kills each but combining on an attack percentage of just .116.
Saturday, Eastern hosts Smith College at noon and John Jay College at 4 p.m. at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
