Photo GalleryBRONX, N.Y. -- The Fordham women's volleyball team claimed it first victory of the season Wednesday night in dominating fashion when it swept St. Francis Brooklyn, 3-0, inside the Rose Hill Gym in the 2015 home opener. The Rams won all three sets by scores of 25-15, 25-14 and 25-18. With the victory, Fordham improves to 1-3 on the season, while the Terriers fall to 0-4 overall.
"Tonight was an excellent way to start off the home portion of the schedule," Head Coach
Gini Ullery said. "I thought we did a very good job of spreading the offense around, and we were very aggressive serving, which was something we talked about earlier in the week and were able to accomplish."
Fordham was very balanced on the offensive side of the net en route to constructing a hitting percentage of .309. Freshman
Breanna Jones and junior
Kristen Ostach both had nine kills to pace the squad, with Ostach producing an incredible .900 hitting percentage. Freshman
Natalie Martinez finished with eight kills, while sophomore
Emily Fronk dished out a match-high 26 assists. A third freshman,
Olivia LaPorta, added a season-high four service aces.
"Kristen (Ostach) had a nice night terminating balls when needed, going 9-for-10," Ullery said.
Defensively, sophomore
Clarissa Cartledge led the way with 14 digs, and senior
Brianna O'Neil narrowly missed double-digit digs with nine. LaPorta also has two total blocks, including one of the solo variety.
With O'Neil serving to start the match, the Rams scored the first four points of the opening set, before opening up a commanding 9-1 lead, which was capped by a service ace from LaPorta.
St. Francis Brooklyn briefly rallied and sliced the Fordham advantage to 12-7, but the Rams responded with a 7-2 spurt to go in front 19-9 after a kill from Jones.
The visitors once again battled back and cut the deficit to six at 20-14. However, Fordham tallied five of the final six points to clinch the first set, 25-15.
The Terriers struck first in the second set with the first two points, before the Rams scored four unanswered to start a 7-1 flurry, as back-to-back kills from Jones and Ostach produced a 7-3 lead.
Still leading by four at 10-6, a kill from O'Neil started another string of four unanswered points and an 8-2 run that put Fordham in front 18-8, before the Rams
cruised to the 25-14 victory.
The third and final set was the most competitive one of the night between the two sides. The Rams jumped out to a 4-2 advantage and would lead by as many as three, before St. Francis Brooklyn trimmed the deficit to one on three different occasions and eventually tying the set at 10-10.
Fordham slowly regained control by navigating to a 17-13 lead when Fronk found Martinez for a big kill. The Rams then created more separation with three straight points to increase their advantage to 22-17, before an Ostach kill ended the set, 25-18, and clinched the match.
"Collecting this victory tonight gives us momentum on our home court going into the second weekend of play," Ullery said. "We have a very good mix of opponents coming to our place for this weekend's Rose Hill Classic, and we need to make sure we take good care of our side of the court."
As mention above, Fordham returns to action this weekend when it hosts the annual Rose Hill Classic. Play for the Rams begin Friday, Sept. 4 with a 1 p.m. contest against Niagara, before a 7 p.m. contest that evening with Georgetown. Fordham then concludes the tournament Saturday afternoon versus Robert Morris at 1 p.m.
