COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Ursinus Volleyball team split a pair of matches in their home tri-match on Saturday at Helfferich Hall. The Bears edged Washington College 3-2 in Centennial Conference play before dropping a hard-fought 3-1 match to Cabrini.
With the split, the Bears moved to 11-3 overall and improved to 1-1 in Centennial Conference action. Meanwhile, the Shorewomen dropped to 9-7 overall plus 1-1 in Centennial play and the Cavaliers improved to 10-8 overall following their pair of wins.
Ursinus 3, Washington College 2
The teams opened the first set with back and forth action to leave the score leveled at six. Ursinus rattled off four-straight points to go up 10-6 before the Shorewomen responded with four of their own to tie the game once again. Washington College pulled ahead to go up 16-13 by winning six of the next eight points following a kill from first-year
Noelle Smits. The Shorewomen extended their advantage to 23-19 seemingly putting away the set, but the Bears responded by taking the next four points to tie the set at 23. Ursinus forced extra points after the Shorewomen reached set point at 24-23 and the battle raged on until Washington finally connected on two-straight points to take the first set at 30-28.
Washington looked to gain control again early in the second set by going up 7-3. However, the Bears battled back by winning six-straight points to go up 9-7 and forced a Shorewomen timeout. Washington came out of the timeout strong by taking eight of the next 13 points to go up 15-12. Ursinus regrouped and worked their way to tie the second set at 18 before taking a lead at 21-19 to force another Shorewomen timeout. Washington won the first point out of the timeout, but the Bears won four of the next five points to win the second set 25-21 to tie the match at 1-1.
The Bears came out scalding hot in the third set as they took an early 6-1 advantage behind five aces from sophomore
Rachel Bernard. Ursinus extended its lead to 8-1 and staved off a pair of Shorewomen points to go up 11-3. The Bears continued to dominate the third set by forcing Washington to use its second timeout after going up 14-4. Washington pulled within eight points at 18-10 but would get no closer the rest of the set as the Bears won seven of the next nine points to win 25-12.
Washington College bounced back from a rough third set by taking an early 4-1 advantage and eventually extended it to 10-3, forcing a Bears timeout. The Shorewomen stretched their lead to 15-7 before the Bears came storming back by winning nine of the next 10 points to level the fourth set at 16. Washington College went up 19-16 after winning three-straight points, but the relentless Bears struck back by taking six of the next eight points to take their first lead of the fourth set at 23-22. Unfortunately for the Bears, they came out on the wrong side of another extra point set as the Shorewomen won the final three of five points to force a fifth set.
Ursinus set the tone of the fifth and decisive set by jumping out to a 6-2 advantage which made the Shorewomen use a timeout. Washington College got as close as 9-6 before the Bears took the last six points with senior
Katie Cressman serving the ball to earn the win.
Cressman led the Bears with a team-high 12 kills at a .171 hitting percentage and tallied six digs along with two aces. Junior
Haley Spotts and Smits each added 11 kills while Smits added four blocks as well. Sophomore
Rachel Bernard paced the Ursinus offense with game-high 25 assists and matched her career-high with six aces. Courtney Maxwell led the Shorewomen with a game-high 16 kills while adding 13 digs, three assists, and two aces.
Cabrini 3, Ursinus 1
The first set started with back and forth action much like the Bears previous battle in the day with the Shorewomen with four lead changes and four ties. Cabrini gained the first big advantage in the set by going up 7-4 with behind a pair of Ursinus errors. The Bears took six of the next eight points to go up 10-9 but the Cavaliers responded by winning 14 of the next 18 points to take control of the first set at 23-14. Ursinus used a pair of attack errors to pull within 23-16 before Cabrini ended the set by taking the final two of three points.
Ursinus gained the first advantage at 3-1 in the second set and the Cavaliers responded with five-straight points behind three kills to go up 6-3. The Bears continued to battle but were seemingly unable to take back the lead of the set with Cabrini going up 13-8. However, Ursinus got the run they needed by taking 15 of the next 17 points to go up 23-15. The Bears used six kills and two aces to fuel the run before closing the set with kills from Cressman and Spotts to level the game at one.
Cabrini responded strongly in the third set by going up 12-3 behind a mixture of kills, aces, and errors. The Bears pulled within five points of 14-9, but that would be as close as they would get in the third set. The Cavaliers won seven of the next nine points to take a 21-11 lead before staving off one last Ursinus run to win the third set, 25-15.
Each team went on extended runs in the first half of the fourth set which eventually saw Cabrini take a 15-10 lead. Ursinus stormed back with six-straight points behind three Cavalier errors to go up 16-15 but was subdued when Cabrini won five of the next six points to go up 20-17. The Bears pulled within two points at 21-19 before the Cavaliers closed the game out by taking four of the next six points.
Cressman led the team in kills again with 13 while adding 12 digs and one assist. Spotts was brilliant for the Bears against the Cavaliers with 12 kills on a .550 hitting percentage. Bernard added 21 assists, 12 digs, and four aces against Cabrini. Sam Heenan registered a game-high 18 kills for Cabrini behind a .366 hitting percentage while Hannah Dalton posted 13 kills and 14 digs. Gina Custer tallied a game-high 28 digs serving as Cabrini's libero.
The Bears return to action on Wednesday, October 5th as they will travel to face Muhlenberg in Centennial Conference action at 7 p.m.
