College of Charleston
#4 Hofstra
Cougars Earn Hard-Fought Victory in CAA Championships
11/21/2015 1:57:00 AM | Volleyball
HARRISONBURG, Va. – Nearly every human emotion was rolled into five sets of volleyball. It seems tough, but No. 5 College of Charleston managed to accomplish just that in a 3-2 (27-25, 25-22, 18-25, 25-27, 15-13) victory over No. 4 Hofstra at Sinclair Gymnasium in the Colonial Athletic Association Volleyball Championships on Friday.
The Cougars (19-12) took a two set lead into the break just to watch it slip away, but eventually battled back from an early deficit in the fifth set to claim the win.
“I'm extremely proud of how we played in the first two sets. We executed the game plan, fought and scrapped and really came out and played well,” CofC head coach Jason Kepner said. “Hofstra did a great job of putting pressure on us with their serve and making plays when they needed to. In the end, we were focused and made big play after big play in the fifth set.”
Just as in the previous four sets, the fifth began well for one side then quickly shifted in favor of the other. The College took a 5-3 lead early before Hofstra surged ahead, 7-5. An ace from Britney Vallez later tied the frame at 7-7, but three of the next four points went to the Pride. Trailing 12-10, a Hofstra error returned service to the Cougars where Kennedy Madison and Krissy Mummey paired for a block before senior Melissa Morello notched a kill. After a single response from Hofstra's Leticia Valente, Mummey struck for a kill and Madison and Kayla Tronick put the match away with a block.
No lead was safe between a pair of teams that have combined to win the last three conference tournament titles. Hofstra had won the last three meetings between the schools. Neither team separated itself by more than two points in the opening set, but it was The College that claimed the final two-point lead and walked away with a 27-25 win.
The back-and-forth continued in the second set as Hofstra (21-11) jumped out to 4-0 lead, but surrendered the next four points. CofC used a trio of Pride errors, a Krissy Mummey kill and an ace from McKala Rhodes en route to a 5-1 run to close out a 25-22 victory.
After Hofstra handedly claimed the third set, 25-18, it looked all done and dusted as the Cougars secured a 20-13 advantage in the fourth. A series of mishaps and quality attacks allowed the Pride to tie and eventually win the set, 27-25.
“The girls stayed together, even through the tighter parts of the match,” Morello said. “I takes a lot to fight through some of those situations but we had someone step up every time we needed them to.”
Krissy Mummey finished the match with eight blocks, the most by a CofC player in CAA tournament history. Allison Beckman collected 48 assists while fellow freshman McKala Rhodes posted 29 digs. Beckman now has 1,044 assists on the season and is the first Cougar freshman since Mary Sabatino in 1999 to eclipse 1,000 assists in a season.
Morello started out hot and never cooled as she recorded six of her game-high 21 kills in the first frame. Morello also posted 10 digs for her 56th career double-double and sole possession of 10th in CofC all-time history with 1,273 digs.
Madison was to only other CofC player to record double-digit kills, she finished with 12 to go along with six blocks. Devon Rachel, Mummey and Tronick all checked in with eight each. Rachel also turned in 15 digs in the match, while Tronick had six blocks.
Hofstra tallied 10 aces in the match but was also credited with 12 service errors.
College of Charleston advance to face top-seeded and host James Madison on Saturday at 5 p.m. Live video will be available at CAA.tv while live stats can be found at CAAStats.com.
For more information on College of Charleston volleyball, visit CofCSports.com or follow the team on Twitter at @CofCVolleyball.
