The Hofstra Pride volleyball squad showed tremendous resiliency in a 3-2 win over Fort Wayne to begin the Hofstra/Stony Brook Invitational on Friday. The Pride was missing a key component to its lineup in middle blocker Leticia Valente. With Valente out of service, other players had to step up in her place.
“It’s two [games] in a week where we’re missing a very important player [in Valente],” said Hofstra head coach Emily Mansur. “Some players stepped up to really be able to help us accomplish the win without having Leticia be a part of the starting team today.”
It wasn’t always easy for Hofstra. The Pride cruised to a first set victory 25-19 thanks to a superior offensive presence. It was tough for Hofstra to run up the score because constant service errors stunted any potential momentum.
Those errors came back to bite the Pride in the second and third sets when Hofstra was unable to stop the moving force of Fort Wayne. Led by Nicole Rightnowar and Lauren Hoffman on offense, the Mastodons carved easy kills through the paper-thin defenses of the Pride.
“We got really frustrated and didn’t know how to handle that well,” Coach Mansur said of the play in the second and third sets. “Our blocking really broke down today which made life harder.”
Hofstra’s confidence was down while the Mastodons were riding high into the fourth set. Searching for answers, Hofstra began to follow the lead of freshman outside hitter Laura Masciullo. Masciullo became the go-to option for the Pride on the attack and she delivered. She finished the match with 20 kills, a career-high.
“[Masciullo] did a great job,” said Mansur. “We’ve been talking to her about educing her errors a little bit and today her [attacking] attempts probably doubled from all the other matches she’s played throughout this year. I think she really pulled us through tonight.”
Masciullo wasn’t the only freshman that stepped up in the match. Heading into the fifth set, Mansur took a huge risk by inserting freshman setter Luisa Sydlik in place of 2015 CAA Setter of the Year Hannah Klemm.
Sydlik was coming off the best match of her young career in which she recorded 40 assists against Seton Hall. Her deceptive and accurate passing helped the Pride start off to a comfortable 4-1 lead in the fifth set. She eventually led them to the victory in the match.
“Right now Sydlik has been more consistent in her serving,” Mansur said of the decision to sub her in for the senior Klemm. “Hannah had already missed two or three serves through the night so we just felt [Sydlik] could start a good run on her serving and we could see where to go from there.”
The win against Fort Wayne marks the Pride’s third straight in the temporary home of the Hofstra Fitness Center. The win propels the Pride to 9-3 on the season while the Mastodons fall to 4-8 with the loss. Next up for Hofstra is a very tough matchup against American University, one of the premier mid-major programs in volleyball.
“We didn’t get a chance to practice with [the new lineup] yet,” said Coach Mansur. “Having a chance to play with the lineup again is going to be a big thing in terms of getting us ready for CAA play next week.”