Women’s Volleyball Drops Two Conference Matches and Wins One Home Game
Image courtesy of CUA Athletics
By Claire Prudhomme
The Catholic University Women’s Volleyball team has played three games this past week. Its first two games, both Landmark Conference games, were on Saturday, October 5th against Scranton and Juniata. Unfortunately, the volleyball team dropped both matches against the teams with Scranton winning 3-1 and Juniata winning 3-0. On Tuesday, October 8th, the team won their first game in its first-ever meeting of Wooster College at 3-1.
Scranton
Freshmen Josephine Morrill, a former Landmark Conference Athlete of the Week, led the team with 15 kills and 15 digs against Scranton. The rest of the team was not far behind as it averaged in 8 digs and a total of 74 digs altogether. The Cardinals and Scranton were back and forth in the first set, starting with a 2-2 run and then at Catholic’s largest lead of 11-3 allowed Scranton to pull within three. The Cards won it’s set on Scranton’s attack error with kills from both Morrill and junior Patricia Martinez.
The second set had ten ties and seven different lead changes; Scranton ended up winning the set 25-22 from four consecutive errors by the Cardinals. The third set was very different than the first two sets, throughout the third set the Royals kept a consistent lead in its score against Catholic. In the fourth set, the Cardinals were leading 8-2 but allowed Scranton to rally, giving them the set win at 25-23 and Wooster took the game at 3-1.
Juniata
On its second game of the day, Morrill and Martinez led the team once again against Juniata: Morrill led with 11 kills and six digs and Martinez had six kills and 17 digs.
Juniata started the first set four points ahead, but the Cardinals tied the match back 20-20 with sophomore Kaitlyn McDonough leading the team to their first lead with a kill. A kill by Morrill tied the set 22-22 just before Juniata scored its final three points.
Catholic led the second set with the first three points, but the Eagles then took their largest lead of the day at 10-5. The Cardinals did not stop and tied the set at 13-13 with a kill by senior Caroline Cooper. After a Juniata timeout, the Eagles scored the sets final three points with two errors on the Cards.
Catholic took a 4-1 lead to the first set with two kills from Cooper until Juniata rallied the set with kills to win both the set and the match.
Wooster
Catholic averaged at a .481 hitting percentage with Cooper totaling a season-high of 17 kills, Morrill totalling 18 kills and eight digs and freshmen Katie Zeremba had seven kills and two block assists. Sophomore Caroline Kelly also had eight assists and a match-high of 25 digs, she has 995 digs in 54 career matches and is just five digs away from becoming the 16th player in school history to reach 1000 digs.
The Cardinals were ahead in the first set before Wooster scored five points to tie it 16-16. The set had nine more ties before the Fighting Scots had a two-point victory on a CUA error. Catholic started off the second set behind but after five consecutive points on kills from Cooper, Morrill and Zaremba and consecutive aces by senior Nina Kasputis.
Catholic won the second match from a service error by the Fighting Scots, Morrill ended the set with seven of her total kills. In the third set, Catholic led early in the set and ended up stretching their lead 21-15 before scoring their next points off of Wooster errors.
The Cards led from start to finish in the fourth set, Wooster pulled points but never tied up the game. The Cardinals scored the final five points with two from kills by Cooper and two from errors by the Fighting Scots.
The Cardinals will host Stevenson on Thursday at 7 p.m. Stevenson is one of the only three unbeaten teams in Division III this season and has posted victories over Landmark Conference rival Elizabethtown.
