Box Score 1 | Box Score 2  KEENE, N.H. – History could not repeat itself, and for that reason, the Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team has lost two consecutive Little East Conference regular-season matches for the first time in four years.
 
In a match where the first four sets were decided by a total of nine points, Keene State College raced to an early 7-1 lead in the decisive fifth set, attacking at .444 – nearly twice as high as any of its previous four sets – and defeated the Warriors in a five-set match for the first time in the series after three previous five-set losses Saturday afternoon at Spaulding Gymnasium.
 
Twice, Keene (11-6, 2-1 LEC) erased one-set disadvantages to win by scores of 23-25, 25-22, 23-25, 25-23, 15-8 as Eastern (9-4, 2-2 LEC) lost consecutive LEC matches for the first time since 2017.
 
Later Saturday, the Warriors dropped their third straight match in a 25-21, 25-13, 25-14 inter-regional loss to RIT (13-2) in the first meeting between the programs in 19 years.
 
Leading two-sets-to-one and with a chance to put away the Owls in the fourth set, Eastern battled back after Keene scored the first eight points of the set – the Owls capitalizing upon four Eastern attack errors and one reception error in that opening stretch – to take one-point leads five times before the hosts closed it out on a kill by Ali McLoughlin to force the decisive fifth set.
 
Fueling Eastern's comeback from that early 8-0 deficit in the fourth set and allowing it to take its first lead (12-11) were seniors Alaetra Long (Lincoln, NE) and Anna Barry (Andover), who combined for ten of the team's 11 points on kills.
 
 In the loss, senior outside Abby Stern (Manchester) became only the tenth player in program history to record as many as 1000 kills – the first since Adrianna Mihalek set the all-time record of 1,494 in 2016. Needing 16 putaways entering the match, Stern had six in the opening set, five in the second set and two in the third set and reached the milestone with her third and final kill of the fourth set.

Stern's first kill of the fourth set tied the match at 16-all. With Eastern trailing, 24-21, she collected the 999^th and 1,000^th of her career off assists from senior Meg Verizzi (Lebanon) to pull the Warriors to within one, 24-23, before McLoughlin ended.
 
Barry, the LEC leader in attack percentage and kills per match, recorded the 800^th kill of her 71-match career against Keene and led all players in the match with 21 kills and a .359 attack percentage. Stern had 20 kills against Keene to boost her career total to 1,004 and added seven against RIT to move her into ninth place all-time with 1,011. Long had 17 kills as the Warriors' Big Three accounted for  58 of the team's match total of 70. Long, who reached 1,000 career digs earlier this year, is second among active players with 846 career kills after adding four against RIT.
 
Also against Keene, junior Nayeli Cruz Martinez (Toa Baja, P.R.) chipped in ten kills and two service aces and junior libero Paula Pérez (Caguas, P.R.) 20 digs and a .939 reception percentage on 33 attempts. Against Keene, Verizzi had 58 assists – equaling the fourth-most ever in a five-set match. She added 17 assists against RIT to move to within 35 of 1,000 in her career. Verizzi also had 15 digs and a 1.000 service percentage on 17 tries against Keene. Defensively, Long had 14 digs and Stern 13 against the Owls.
 
After sharing the LEC regular-season title in 2018 and '19 and winning all five of its LEC matches last spring, Eastern was the pre-season coaches' favorite to win the 2021 regular-season title. Keene was picked third, 13 votes behind the Warriors.
 
Eastern hosts Connecticut College Wednesday at 6 p.m. in a non-conference match. The Camels are 3-5 overall.