MATCH ONE: Hofstra off to rocky start vs. Virginia Commonwealth
By Mike Rudin – SPORTS EDITOR
Hofstra traveled down to Winston-Salem, North Carolina to throw their hat in the ring to compete in the Deacon Classic. Off the bat, Hofstra Pride got rocked hard, being swept in three sets by Virginia Commonwealth University last Friday.
Not the ideal start for the Pride in the two-day tournament, Hofstra was strung up by the set scores of 25-16, 25-23 and 25-15.
Virginia tripled the amount of blocks (21-4) and nearly doubled in service aces (9-5) when compared to the Pride.
The first set hosted eight attack errors by Hofstra, which shot themselves in the foot considering Virginia had 11 kills and only three attack errors. The Pride’s offense was too spotty to make up the difference, compiling 10 kills in the first.
The errors mounted together and the lack of offense was VCU’s recipe for success, which passed with flying colors to take the first set by nine points.
Hofstra took their performance in the first set to heart and they were determined to step up their game in the next set.
The Virginia Rams and the Hofstra Pride fought back and forth early on then Hofstra broke out with a 10-1 streak to go up 13-5 in the second set.
Hofstra took advantage of the Rams’ offensive mistakes and the Pride started to get a rhythm going on offense.
Virginia tried to fight back with four straight points afterwards but Hofstra kicked it up a notch with five in a row to negate the rally by the Rams.
Up 19-10, Murphy’s law was helping the Pride this turn around but it slowly started to turn against the Pride.
After both teams exchanged points, VCU ran on all cylinders to score seven straight and get within two points, forcing Hofstra to panic.
The Pride tried to break the rally by going up 23-20, needing two points to win the set, but the Rams stole the show at the end with five straight points.
With Hofstra back against the wall, they were crushed in harder than the previous two sets.
The Pride compiled only eight kills in the last set while committing eight attack errors, that’s a .000 attack percentage and it sealed Hofstra’s fate by a ten-point margin in the final set.
Corrina Delgadillo tried to keep Hofstra alive with 11 digs altogether. Hannah Klemm had season-low 24 assists against VCU.
Nanishka Perez was the only Pride player to reach double digits in kills with 10 in the first match of the Deacon Classic.
MATCH TWO: Pride turn the tide, steamrolling Georgia in three
A new day, a new opportunity to start fresh and the Hofstra Pride did just that, sweeping University of Georgia in three sets on Saturday morning and day two of the Deacon Classic invitational.
The newcomers of 2015, Laticia Valente and Luisa Domingues, led the Pride to victory. Valente spearheaded the offense with 17 kills and Domingues held down the fort with 16 digs.
It wasn’t an easy task for the Pride in the first two sets as the Georgia Dogs breathed down the back of their necks, losing by two points apiece.
Both teams were coming off a loss from the previous day but Hofstra had the earlier match. Meaning the Pride had a few more hours to rest than the Dogs. This played to be a factor considering right after their match, Georgia had approximately 13 hours to get ready for their matchup against the Pride.
Both teams collected spurts of points in the first set. Georgia took a 3-0 lead to start, Hofstra scored four straight points to go up 31-11 and Georgia put up three straight to tie the first set at 24-24.
Hofstra out-killed the Dogs 18-13 in the first set but the Pride’s seven attack errors nearly cost them the opportunity to get started on the right foot.
But Brianna Montgomery and Laticia Valente inked the first set in Hofstra’s name with back-to-back kills, winning 26-24 in the first.
Round two reared its head and Hofstra got on a scoring frenzy to double Georgia’s score, 10-5, to start the second set.
The Pride kept rolling through to take a 20-12 lead and all seemed well until the Dogs started to hold their ground.
Georgia rallied back afterwards with a 12-3 streak to lead 24-23 and Murphy’s law seemed to be in affect against the Pride yet again.
Hofstra tied it up at 22 points apiece but the Dogs took the lead again plus the advantage of needing one more point to lock up the second set.
Then in a moment’s notice, Brianna Montgomery and Laticia Valente played heroes with three straight kills to put Hofstra 2-0 in the match.
Valente alone came up clutch by the end of both sets with the set-winning kill in the first and back-to-back kills to take the second.
Hofstra cleaned up their scoring act from the first set, going up in attack percentage from .256 to .270, the Pride did this through limiting their attack errors to five in the second.
The third and final set showed how drained the Dogs were, losing to the Pride 25-16. Efficiency was long gone for Georgia, only putting up seven kills but committed six attack errors in a .031 attack percentage.
Veronika Kostova and Brianna Montgomery also helped dismantle Georgia’s defense, Kostova with 13 kills and Montgomery with 11.
Setter Hannah Klemm collected 44 assists and Nanishka Perez put up 11 digs on the back line.
MATCH THREE: Delgadillo marks 1,000 career digs in heartbreaking finale
By Steven Wolff – SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Coming off a sweep against Georgia, the Hofstra Pride fell in the finale of the Deacon Classic, to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons 3-2.
The match was close throughout, as each team alternated sets, however Wake Forest stormed back, winning the fourth and fifth sets.
In the defeat, senior defensive specialist Corrina Delgadillo reached a thousand career digs, recording twelve on the day.
Offensively, sophomore middle blocker Leticia Valente tied her career high with 17 kills, leading the Pride for the second straight match. Also, sophomore right side Brianna Montgomery racked off 14 kills.
No team ran away with this one, as there were 21 tie scores and 12 lead changes. Hofstra was up 20-15 late in the fourth set, when Wake Forest bounced back and scored five straight to tie it up.
The pride lacked the quick point, as they were outscored 8-2 on aces. They also hurt themselves through 31 errors, the second most on the season.
For the Demon Deacons, second year outside hitter Kylie Long was nearly impossible to stop, as she led all scorers on the day with 19 kills, leading the team this year.
A balanced offense is the key coming out of the match as Hofstra got contributions from Valente, Montgomery, and Perez. Junior outside hitter Veronika Kostova, who is the team leader on the season with 216 kills, only had 8 on the day.
Despite that, the Pride was highly competitive, and will look to rebound and utilize all their weapons in the next match.
The loss brings the Pride to 9-6 on the year. They will look to rebound from the tough loss on Wednesday, as they begin the CAA slate with a date with the Northeastern Huskies on Wednesday. First serve is set for 7:00 p.m.