Box Score
WILLIMANTIC, Conn. – Coming off a late Friday night four-set road match and returning to the court 14 hours later, the Eastern Connecticut State University women's volleyball team shook off some early sluggishness to sweep Mitchell College for the ninth time in the 11-match series Saturday morning at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium. Set scores were 25-21, 25-16, 25-13.
 
The home match was only the second this year for Eastern (5-4) and the first since sweeping the University of Saint Joseph on the opening night of the season three weeks ago.
 
Against Mitchell (3-6), Eastern persevered in the first set, erasing a four-point deficit before finally taking its first lead, 17-16, on the third of five straight service points from sophomore Brooke Praskievicz (Moodus).
 
The Warriors had little trouble thereafter, racing to a 7-1 in the second set on the strength of four Mitchell errors, kills from sophomore Haley Jo Bridges (Montebello, NY) and first-year attack Emma Robinson (Westlake Village, CA) and a service ace from Praskievicz.
 
Leading 6-5 in the third set, the Warriors scored four straight points behind kills from senior Taylor Smith (Bowie, MD), Robinson, and senior Bella Johnson (Marlborough) and first-year setter Ariah Davis' (Raleigh, NC) service ace.
 
Robinson, one of the Little East Conference's leaders in kills and attack percentage, recorded her team-leading 100^th kill of the season with her second of two in the first set.  Robinson had a match-high ten kills on the day with a .474 attack percentage and also led both teams with 15 digs; Bridges had seven kills with a .250 attack percentage; Praskievicz had six kills, two service aces, 13 digs and did not commit a service error (on 18 attempts) or reception error (on 11 tries).
 
Setters Liz Squier (Trevor, WI), a junior, and Davis combined for seven service aces (without an error on 30 serves) and 36 assists.
 
Eastern visits Dean College in a non-conference match Wednesday at 6 p.m. before hosting the University of Southern Maine next Saturday at noon in its LEC opener.