Volleyball thumped by Oregon and snaps five-match win streak
The Hofstra volleyball team’s five-match win streak came to an end at the hands of No. 14 University of Oregon Ducks on Friday, Sept. 20, in a 3-0 loss at the David S. Mack Physical Education Center. Set scores were 25-20, 25-21 and 25-19.
“Definitely a tough day for us,” said head coach Emily Mansur following the defeat. “Some of our key players were not as aggressive or as good as they usually are for us. We knew that we had to play our A-game in order to have a chance to compete and sneak a win, and that just didn’t happen tonight.”
The loss came in spite of an excellent night from junior Ana Martinovic, who tallied 13 kills on 25 attempts, as well as four digs and a service ace with no errors to earn a .520 hitting percentage. Also playing well for the Pride were junior Luz Divina Nuñez Sierra, with nine kills and a block; senior Laura Masciullo with seven kills, two digs and two blocks and freshman Athina Dimitriadis, with six kills on 12 attempts, a dig and a block. Sophomore Maddie Appleton had just one kill on her only attempt, but completed two of the Pride’s three service aces and posted four digs. Helping in setting up her teammates was senior Luisa Sydlik, who made an impressive 27 assists through the three sets. Junior Juliana Vaz led all players in digs with 10.
The Ducks were led by Ronika Stone, who had a match-best 17 kills and hitting percentage of .650. Kylie Robinson led both teams in assists with 32, and added seven digs and two service aces, both of which came in the third and final set.
The first set was tightly contested until Oregon pulled away to a 15-11 advantage before going up another seven points to a score of 22-15. Martinovic came close to pulling the Pride back into it, but Hofstra was unable to catch up and lost the set 25-20.
The Pride jumped out in front early in the following set, but the Ducks tied the match at 8-8. Neither team was able to earn a decisive advantage for much of the set, as the largest difference in points only reached three when the Ducks went up 21-18. From there, a 4-2 run earned them the win.
With an early Hofstra lead being snuffed out once again in the third set, it was much of the same until the Ducks exploded to turn an 11-11 tie into a 17-11 advantage, powered by four kills from Stone. The Pride were unable to catch up, losing the final set 25-19.
This match was only the second time in the program’s history that the Pride faced off with Oregon. Their previous match occurred in 1985, which also resulted in a loss for Hofstra.
Image courtesy of Adam Flash
