Volleyball ends James Madison’s unbeaten CAA run

In their biggest Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) game of the season, the Hofstra Pride beat the James Madison University (JMU) Dukes 3-1 on Sunday, Oct. 21, to secure the win and end JMU’s unbeaten conference run.

The game started off with offensive fireworks as the Pride ferociously attacked the Dukes with speedy bullet-like serves and powerful kills. 

The score was close at 5-4 as the Pride made simple technical errors to give JMU points. JMU would capitalize on these mistakes and go on multiple scoring runs to eventually pull away with a 25-20 victory in set one.

Set two was a different story for the Pride. They immediately jumped out to a 4-0 lead, capitalizing on attack errors by JMU. 

The Pride continued to add onto their lead throughout the second set with multiple kills from Laura Masciullo and Nanishka Perez. 

Yet the Dukes would still find a way to tie the game at 21-21 after their own offensive scoring streak. 

Hofstra collected themselves and sealed the set with two powerful kills by Masciullo to finalize a 25-22 set win.

Set three began the same way as set two, with Hofstra jumping out to an early lead but JMU finding a way to crawl back in. 

Each team kept exchanging kills with Skinner of Hofstra and Briley Brind’Amour of JMU constantly hitting the ball out of the reach of others. 

The set would go beyond the 25 points needed to win and it would be Hofstra’s Michela Rucli sealing the win with two final kills to end it at 28-26

Set four would be all Hofstra as they dominated JMU the whole set. The team went on multiple three-point runs to increase the score from 3-1 to 15-8, forcing JMU’s second timeout as they tried to slow the Pride’s offensive onslaught. 

Hofstra continued to dominate with their front three with Rucli and Doris Bogoje seemingly able to block every ball that came their way, totaling seven blocks between the two. 

“[Bogoje] was the leader of the match. We always have one and she was the one that was chosen today and she really took charge and took us to a big win,” said Hofstra head coach Emily Mansur.  

After JMU scored an attack error from Hofstra, their next serve would fly out of bounds and the Pride would secure a 25-13 set win and an overall 3-1 game win over once unbeaten JMU.

“It was a very nice win for us, and we had contributions from many people on the team,” Mansur said. 

“JMU is a great team so getting a win is definitely something that shows that we can do this against the number one team. We just have to continue to build to be consistent on how way play.”

The Pride look to continue their great momentum as they head to Williamsburg, Virginia to face William & Mary on Friday, Oct. 26. They return home on Thursday, Nov. 1, to play College of Charleston at 7 p.m. 

Photo Courtesy of Cam Keough / The Hofstra Chronicle