The Shippensburg University volleyball team won a pair of matches Friday at Tony Banner Memorial Classic, sweeping Daemen (N.Y.) and defeating West Virginia Wesleyan in four sets in action held at Clarion's Waldo Tippin Gymnasium.
Set scores against the Wildcats were 25-16, 25-12 and 31-29. Set scores against the Bobcats were 25-21, 30-28, 18-25 and 25-13.
Shippensburg (2-1) defeated both of its feline foes in large part to an excellent day on the service line and an improved hitting attack. The Raiders delivered 25 aces on the day – 10 against Daemen and 15 against West Virginia Wesleyan – while hitting .219 as a team.
SU averaged 16 digs per set; senior libero
Shay Kolivoski paced the Raiders with a total of 30 digs spanning the two matches. Juniors
Jaiden Anderson and
Shea Stevens combined for 44 digs; Anderson also delivered 43 assists in her role as one of the team's two setters. Freshman setter
Molly Seifert tallied 27 assists and 10 digs.
Junior
Clara Wildermuth hit .319 from the floor on the day, slamming 19 kills with just four errors. She also had three blocks. Sophomore
Elise Bragg had the most combined kills for the Raiders between the two matches, totaling 21 – 14 of those came in the opening victory over Daemen.
Redshirt-sophomore
Riley Blank had a breakthrough performance on the day – crunching 15 kills on just three errors for a team-high .353 hitting percentage. Twelve of her 15 kills came in the victory over West Virginia Wesleyan. Blank entered Friday with just 10 kills in her career, and five of those came in last night's season opener.
Senior
Hailey Cappleman matched Blank with 15 kills but was especially valuable on the service line, delivering a team-high nine aces. Cappleman had served four or more aces in a match just once in her previous 86 career matches entering Friday, but served four aces against Daemen and then a career-high five against West Virginia Wesleyan.
Fellow senior
Natalya Montague and Cappleman totaled a team-high four blocks. Three of Montague's four blocks were of the solo variety. Montague, who surpassed 100 career blocks last night against Clarion, contributed 13 kills and hit .194.
Seven Raiders delivered multiple aces on the day, including four from junior
Sophia Barrera (two in each match) and three each from setters Anderson and Seifert.
Shippensburg concludes its weekend in Clarion with one more match - a 9 a.m. matinee Saturday against Franklin Pierce.
Shippensburg 3, Daemen 0 (25-16, 25-12, 31-29)
The Raiders used a 7-1 run in the first set to extend a 12-10 lead to a 19-11 advantage. In the second set, the score was again 12-10, and this time Shippensburg embarked on a 13-2 run to close the frame and take a 2-0 lead.
In the roller-coaster third set, the teams combined for 21 tie scores and exchanged the lead 10 times. SU was unsuccessful on match-point opportunities at 24-23 and 26-25 but successfully staved off four potential set points for Daemen (at 24-25, 26-27, 27-28 and 28-29). The first was stopped with a Cappleman kill, while kills by Bragg stopped the next two.
The Wildcats delivered their 12th and final service error of the match on the fourth set point, prefacing kills by Bragg and Montague to end the match.
After hitting zero in the opening set (three kills and three errors), Bragg responded in the final two sets with 11 kills on just three errors – including seven kills in the third set. Bragg finished with 14 kills and a .267 hitting percentage to go along with eight digs.
Montague had eight kills and hit .300, while Wildermuth delivered seven kills without an error en route to a .389 hitting percentage.
Anderson had the majority of the setting opportunities and finished with 22 assists to complement 12 digs. Stevens led the team with 13 digs, while Kolivoski had 11.
SU finished with a 10-1 advantage in aces to offset a 6-2 disadvantage in blocks.
Shippensburg 3, West Virginia Wesleyan 1 (25-21, 30-28, 18-25, 25-13)
SU (2-1) and West Virginia Wesleyan (1-1) combined for 24 aces (15 by the Raiders) and 15 blocks (seven by the Raiders). The key stretch of the opening set was an 8-2 run in which Shippensburg moved from a 9-9 tie into a 17-10 advantage that it rode through the rest of the frame.
The second set was a different story, as it included 15 tie scores and eight lead changes. The Raiders trailed by three points at multiple junctures, including at 19-22. A kill by Blank, an ace by Stevens and a kill by Bragg evened the score at 22-22.
SU could not convert four set points (24-23, 25-24, 26-25, 28-27) and had to stave off one of Wesleyan's (26-27) before ultimately taking a 2-0 lead with kills by Montague and Blank.
The third set was all West Virginia Wesleyan – the Bobcats committed just one attack error in the set, hit .355 as a team and closed the frame on a 14-5 run. A 7-0 run helped Wesleyan lead by 10 points (18-8) en route to taking the frame.
The fourth set meanwhile was all Shippensburg – the Raiders had 11 kills and hit .320 while the Bobcats committed 10 errors (six attack, three service, one blocking) and hit .033. An 8-2 run midway through the set helped SU take control.
Kolivoski's back-row passing was on full display against West Virginia Wesleyan as she led all players with 19 digs while also contributing 10 assists. Playing in her 83rd career match, the contest marked just the second time that Kolivoski has recorded a "double-double" with double-digit digs and assists from the libero position (she had a 23-dig, 11-assist effort against American International last season).
Blank, Cappleman and Wildermuth each combined for a team-high 12 kills. Blank's career-high 12 kills came in concert with a team-best .346 attack percentage. Wildermuth hit .276.
Cappleman was all over the court, hitting an efficient .304 to go along with her career-high five aces and a team-high three block assists.
Anderson had 21 assists, 11 digs and a career-high three aces; Seifert had 18 aces, seven digs and one ace.
Sophomore
Augusta DeVos made her season debut and set a multitude of single-match bests while appearing in just her fourth career match. DeVos had five kills on just two errors and hit .231; she entered the match with just two career kills and only four attack attempts.
