Volleyball Completes Comeback, Wins Five-Set Thriller Over Hartford

Box Score

NEW YORK – The Fordham volleyball team came back from down two sets to one to win a five-set thriller over Hartford to begin the Lion Invitational on Friday evening. It's the first three-match winning streak for Fordham since exactly one year ago, and improves the Rams' record to 7-5 on the year. The Hawks fall to 3-8 overall.
 
The Rams tallied season-highs in kills (66), attempts 156), assists (62), and points (85.0), while matching a season-high 11 service aces. However, Fordham nearly hit season-highs with 34 attack errors and committed a season-high 13 service errors. Sophomore setter Maddy Walsh tallied a season-high 57 assists, while Natalie Martinez's .600 attack percentage set the school record for five-set matches.

"We showed resilience, and when we played our game, we did some great things," Head coach Gini Ullery remarked after the match, "We were strong defensively the last two sets."
 
Fordham raced out to a 6-0 and 8-2 lead with a balanced attack to begin the match, with no player killing more than one point, and never looked back, en route to a 25-20 score, although Hartford battled back and got the lead down to two on several occasions. Freshman Olivia Fairchild set a season-high with eight kills in the stanza, including the final two points. The Rams made eight errors on
 
The two teams were even throughout the second set but Fordham struggled towards the end on the attack, with Hartford earning its final four points via the block to even things up with a 25-21 score.  The Rams matched their season-high of nine attack errors in the frame despite out-killing the Hawks, 15-6. Fordham bounced back in the third set with 14 kills and just five errors, a .281 mark that was the tops for the team in the match, but the Hawks took a two set to one lead by being even more efficient in attack, with 15 kills, just three errors, and a .387 hit percentage.
 
Ullery began shaking things up in the third set, getting senior Kristen Ostach into the match, as the captain notched four kills on six attempts with no errors, plus a solo block, and later brought Martinez off the bench in the fourth set. The sophomore outside hitter gave the team fresh legs and was a force, racking up five kills in the final two sets, with just one error, on 15 total attempts. Like the first set, the Rams controlled from the beginning, with several players, Fairchild, Ostach, Kaitlin Morley, and Martinez each contributing a kill to take a 6-1 lead. Martinez racked up three of the next four Fordham points, with Fairchild notching the other, to push their lead to its largest, seven. The two schools exchanged points as the Rams held that seven-point lead, extending it to eight on a kill by Fairchild, and eventually winning by that margin, 25-17.  
 
Martinez and Morley had all the kills in the final frame, five and two, respectively, as the Rams led from the jump and complete the comeback. Fordham took an 8-2 lead, with a 5-0 run, four points of which came on Ostach's serve, including two aces, a Martinez kill, and a block by the sophomore and Elise Benjamin. Hartford made things interesting by creeping back with a 4-0 run of their own late to cut the deficit to one, 12-11, but Morley killed the next two points and an attack error gave Fordham the win.
 
Morley tallied a team-high four aces and racked up 12 kills and six digs. Fairchild led all players by a wide margin with 21 kills (.185) to go with six digs, while Martinez finished with 10 in two sets and Ostach with seven, on 11 attempts (.545), in three. Walsh nearly had her first Fordham double-double, missing out by one dig. Freshman libero Morgan Williams led all players with 18 digs to go with her four assists and two aces.
 
The Rams have a doubleheader tomorrow in Manhattan, starting with Providence at 1:30 p.m. followed by Columbia at 7:30 p.m.