Box Score Oct. 25, 2009
Box Score
Bronx, N.Y. -
Playing for the second consecutive day, the Fordham University volleyball squad was hoping for a quick match against the visiting Villanova Wildcats. And it started out looking like it would be a fast Fordham win as the Rams took the first two sets from Villanova before dropping the next two. But Fordham came back to take the fifth set and win the match, 3-2.
With the win, Fordham improves to 12-15 overall while Villanova falls to 16-7.
Leading the way for the Rams was Jenna Hart, who led Fordham with 12 kills while hitting .400 and adding three block assists. Also notching double figures kills for the Rams were Kailee May, who had eleven, and Christi Griffiths and Katie Wells, who each finished with ten.
Fordham won the first set, 25-17, pulling away late in the set. With the score tied at 14, the Rams scored three straight points, the first coming on a Michele Keathley service ace, to take a 17-14 lead. But the Wildcats came back to pull to within one, 17-16, on a Fordham setting error. A Villanova service error made it an 18-16 Fordham lead and Griffiths scored two more points with consecutive service aces to give the Rams a 20-16 lead. After Villanova picked up a point on a service error, the Rams scored the final five points of the set to win, 25-17.
The Rams led the second set from start to finish, winning 25-16 while hitting .429 in the set. Fordham jumped out to a 6-2 lead following a Villanova attack error, before the Wildcats tried to get back in the game, closing to within two, 9-7, on another Fordham attack error. But the Rams quickly got the lead back to six, 15-9, and extended it to nine, 24-15 before going on to the 25-16 win.
Fordham trailed 14-9 midway through the third set before mounting a comeback, tying the game at 14 on a Villanova attack error. The score would be tied at 17 later in the set before the Wildcats scored four straight points, building a 21-17 lead and going on to a 25-19 win.
The fourth set started out close before the Rams pulled out to a 13-7 lead following an Erickson Brown service ace. But Villanova scored five straight points to cut the deficit to one, 13-12, and would take a 17-15 lead later in the set. The Rams came back to knot the game at 20 on a Hart kill and the score would be tied four more times, the last at 24 before Villanova scored on back-to-back Maggie Mergen kills to win the set, 27-15.
The Rams got off to a hot start in the fifth set, leading 4-1 after a Wells kills, and 6-2 following a Keathley ace. The Wildcats fought back to pull to within two, 8-6, before Fordham scored three straight points, two of those on Hart kills, to take an 11-6 lead and they went on to a 15-9 win to take the match. Fordham hit a blistering .529 in the final set.
Katherine Burrell finished with 25 assists and 13 digs for the Rams while Samantha Jacobson added 20 assists and Keathley added a team-high 19 digs and three service aces.
The Rams will next be in action on Friday, October 30th as they travel to St. Louis to face the Saint Louis University Billikens in an Atlantic 10 match at 7:00 PM (EST).
