By Jeffrey Werner -- STAFF WRITER
The Hofstra Pride volleyball team took another big step in defending their CAA title by defeating the William & Mary Tribe 3-0 on Friday, Sept. 25th.
Nanishka Perez led the team in scoring with 14 kills but not far behind her were Leticia Valente and Veronika Kostova, each with 11 kills. Hannah Klemm helped the offensive effort with 47 assists, which helped her move into fifth on the Hofstra all-time career assists record. Defensively, Luisa Domingues, who was given the libero jersey for the match, proved she was worthy of the honor by leading the team in digs with 25. Head coach Emily Mansur was happy with Domingues’ performance.
“She did a great job. Whoever has the jersey, if the team is playing well with them, they will get to keep the jersey. Today, everybody played together, which helped her keep the jersey for the entire match.”
The Pride got off to a hot start in the first set when they went on a seven-point run before the Tribe called a timeout. The Tribe went on a three-point run after the timeout, but the lead was too insurmountable for them to overcome and with a little help from a violation by the Tribe, the Pride took the first set.
The second set wasn’t as dominating for Hofstra as the first. It was a back-and-forth game as they exchanged points in the beginning. Hofstra struggled early with mistakes as they totaled eight attack errors in the second set. Despite the errors, Hofstra gained the lead back and never gave it up again, taking the second set 25-22.
The third set was a mixture of both the first and second set. The teams once again exchanged points until the set was tied at five. Then Hofstra went on a six-point run to gain an 11-5 lead before William & Mary called another timeout.
After the timeout, it was the Tribe’s turn to go on a few runs, as they composed four two-point streaks to get within one point of the Pride. The Pride was able to pull away from the Tribe with two two-point streaks and a four-point streak to claim their second conference win. While she is happy with her team’s start in conference play, coach Mansur is cautious about the rest of the season.
“We are very confident, but we are taking it game by game, because we know everything changes. As a team, we have to be confident in what we do but, at the same point, we got to take it day by day because every team in the CAA is good so we have to respect everyone.”