Volleyball's Season Ends with Five-Set Loss at Rhode Island

Box Score (pdf)

Kingston, R.I. – The Fordham volleyball team's season ended on Friday night at Rhode Island, falling to the hosting Rams in a tight five-set match. With the loss, Fordham will finish the campaign with a 12-15 overall record and a 4-10 mark in conference play, while Rhode Island improves to 11-15 and 6-8, respectively.
 
"Tonight we played as a team and competed until the end," Head coach Gini Ullery-Shrift said after the match, "We saw success when we were able to run a balanced offense in serve reception and defense."
 
The Rams fought to force a fifth set, taking sets two and four, but fell in the final frame, 15-11. Olivia Fairchild led the way with a match-high 17 kills, McKenna Lahr tallied five aces, and Morgan Williams set a new personal-best with 28 digs on the night. Lahr also double-doubles with 11 kills and 11 digs.
 
The trio of Fairchild, Olivia LaPorta, and Nicole Freeley each notched three blocks on the night, while Maddy Walsh racked up 36 digs.
 
Fordham struggled in the opening set, recording nearly as many errors as kills, nine to seven, for a .062 attack percentage, while Rhody hit at a .216 clip. The Rams turned it around quickly, though, with a season-high 19 kills in the second frame, hitting at a .324 pace, while Rhody was down to .200 and 11 kills.
 
Fordham dipped back down to nine kills (.111), while Rhode Island enjoyed its most efficient set of the night, with 13 kills at a .323 clip. Despite struggling in the fourth set on the attack, though, with 11 kills and a .053 attack percentage, Fordham was able to get it done with four blocks and three aces, plus seven Rhode Island errors. Fordham jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the fifth set but Rhody answered with four straight points to take the lead for good, though the Rams would even things up two more times. With the score knotted up at nine-all, Rhode Island rattled off four straight points on three kills and an ace to build a comfortable enough lead to hold on for the win.
 
Fairchild finishes her sophomore campaign with 350 kills, 3.57 kills per set, and 63 aces. The latter two marks rank inside the top-10s of each in a single season, at fourth and sixth, respectively. Both numbers are also the highest ever produced by a Fordham sophomore. The Phoenix native's 3.96 career kills per set average also ranks first all-time in program history. She also sits seventh all-time with 120 career aces.
 
Morgan Williams' final tally of 398 digs ranks eighth in a single season at Fordham and her 4.06 digs per set falls just short of the record set by Jenn Shea in 1994 of 4.10. She's just the second Ram to ever average more than four digs per set. Williams' 771 career digs rank outside the all-time top-10 but her career 3.71 digs per set average easily is a new pace setter, besting Stephanie Frost's mark of 3.46 set between 2004 and 2007.
 
Maddy Walsh tonight passed Abigail Konovodoff for eighth all-time with 1,659 career assists. Her 8.69 career average also ranks fifth all-time. McKenna Lahr wraps up an impressive rookie campaign with 192 kills, second-most on the team, and 39 aces. The aces rank eighth all-time among Fordham freshmen but her 0.49 aces per set average ranks third among Ram rookies.
 
While the team's 4-10 record in Atlantic 10 play matches last year's tally, the team's 12 overall wins are the most since 2012, which is the last time the Rams also won more than four conference matches.