The Falcons volleyball team was swept in the first two matches by the Virginia Commonwealth Rams on Friday and the Northwestern Wildcats in the first match of a Saturday doubleheader, before finishing strong in the second match of the doubleheader, defeating the Seton Hall Pirates 3-2.
“Our lows were very low and our highs were very high,” Falcons head coach Danijela Tomic said. “We need to be better playing at a more consistent level.”
Friday’s match saw the Falcons get off to a good start, taking a 5-0 lead on a rally early, before Virginia Commonwealth eventually came back to tie it up later 12-12. The Falcons shortly retook the lead before Virginia Commonwealth went on a rally of their own to go up 18-13, going on to win the first set 25-15.
In the second set, Virginia Commonwealth went on a rally of their own for a 5-0 advantage, as the Falcons were not able to make a comeback, falling 25-12. Virginia Commonwealth finished off the match in the third with a 25-16 victory.
“We were pretty much served off the floor,” Tomic said. “We had nine receiving errors to their two, we were out of system most of the time. We started well the first set, but they just served really well, and we couldn’t do much honestly.”
On Saturday, the team had a close first set against Northwestern, who took the set 25-21, before Northwestern scored a more decisive victory in the second set 25-12. Northwestern took the third set and the match with a 25-16 victory, as the Falcons were still looking to fight for momentum.
“We just struggled with the service team,” Tomic said. “We were out of system a lot, we couldn’t convert balls into kills, we just couldn’t score.”
In the second match of the Saturday doubleheader, the Falcons fell behind Seton Hall in the first two sets 25-15 and 26-24; however the team rebounded with a 25-17 victory in the third to keep themselves in the match.
The fourth set had the Falcons up 24-18, but, a six-point rally by Seton Hall tied it up, forcing the teams into a two point advantage situation. The Falcons took the lead with a kill from sophomore middle blocker Celena Kanagin, but Seton Hall responded with a kill of their own to tie the set up once more. However, two straight kills from junior outside hitter Isabel Kovacic and freshman outside hitter Jacqueline Askin, respectively, won the set for the Falcons 27-25 and sent the match into a fifth set.
In the fifth set, both teams remained fairly even before the Falcons had a three-point rally to go up 12-9. While the lead was later cut to 13-12, the team took advantage of two Seton Hall errors to win the match with a 15-12 fifth set victory.
“We talked about finishing this tournament the way we finished the last tournament,” Tomic said. “(We said) let’s finish strong and let’s get the win and open the MAC on a winning streak. It didn’t start well, we lost the first two sets and we kind of gained momentum in half of the second set. We made some changes and were trying to find the mix of players that we needed to have on the floor… it was just talking to our team, let’s just play.”
The team will next play on Thursday night on the road against the Miami RedHawks.
