WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – Senior
Alaetra Long (Lincoln, NE) snapped the ninth and final tie of the third set with her fifth kill of the match that allowed the Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team to complete a 25-16, 25-15, 26-24 non-conference sweep of New England College in the first meeting ever between the Warriors and Pilgrims Tuesday evening at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.
Coming off two losses at home Saturday – including a five-set decision against unbeaten LEC regular-season champion Plymouth State University -- Eastern (15-7) evened its final regular-season home record at 4-4 by winning for the sixth time in the last eight overall contests. Since losing two straight to Little East Conference teams UMass Dartmouth and Plymouth State, New England (17-6) had won ten of 11 entering play. It marked only the third time this year that the Pilgrims had been swept.
Cassie Parmelee (above) was perfect on 15 serves and had
two of the team's eight aces in the sweep of New
England College. This year, the first-year player has
35 service aces and a .941 serve percentage.
(Photo by Kaitlin Capello)
In matches decided in three sets, Eastern improved to 9-1, having been swept only once this year – never by a New England opponent.
After winning the opening hard-fought first two sets – where there were nine ties and four lead changes – Eastern led by three points and was within two points of winning the match before the Pilgrims battled back to tie the third set for the ninth and final time on a kill by junior Shirita Wimberly and three Eastern attack errors. With New England serving, however, Long had her tenth kill of the match to make it 25-24, and an NEC attack error on senior
Meg Verizzi's (Lebanon) serve closed out the set and match.
Long and Stern combined for ten kills and a .421 attack percentage when the Warriors attacked at .382 in the nine-point first-set victory and the Warriors survived a .139 attack percentage for a ten-point victory in the second set, thanks in part of the Pilgrims' .000 attack percentage.
Verizzi had six of her match total of ten digs in the opening set, junior libero
Paula Pérez (Caguas, P.R.) added five of her match-high 13 digs in the second and Long had six digs to go along with her five kills in the final set.
All 13 available players saw action in the match. Long and senior
Abby Stern (Manchester) led the Warriors with ten kills each, with Stern attacking at .261 and
Bella Johnson (Marlborough),
Taylor Smith (Bowie, MD),
Kennedy Jakan (Sprague) and
Paige Savitsky (Centereach, NY) combining on 14 kills without an error on 37 attack attempts.
Verizzi and Long followed Perez with ten digs each and Verizzi was credited with 36 assists, her final one giving her 800 on the season. Stern was perfect on 15 reception attempts and Long had just one error on 21 tries as the Warriors posted their third-best reception percentage (.963) of the season.
NEC sophomore Amber Thi had half of her team's 30 kills and attacked at .481, with senior Kenzie Barron setting for 17 assists and junior libero Jaycie Kodama leading the Pilgrims with 12 digs.
Eastern closes out the regular season with a Little East Conference match at UMass Dartmouth Saturday at 1 p.m., having beaten UMass Dartmouth the last 11 times the programs have met and in 44 of the last 45 contests.
The Warriors enter play Saturday locked in a five-way tie for second place in the nine-team LEC. The top two teams in the final standings receive first-round tournament byes, with the No. 3 seed hosting the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 seed hosting the No. 5 seed in Tuesday's first-round matches.
