MARYVILLE – Maryville tried to not look too far ahead to its Tuesday night clash in Kentucky, and the Scots were successful with a pair of Collegiate Conference of the South victories for Homecoming.
Maryville knocked off Huntingdon 3-0 and Wesleyan 3-1 here Friday. The season 3-0 sweeps of Huntingdon were the first against the Hawks since 2017; the dropped set to Wesleyan was the first in 12 all-time matches against the Wolves since the series began in 2016.
The set scores against Huntingdon were 27-25, 25-20 and 25-17. After Huntingdon defeated Wesleyan 3-0, Maryville came back and prevailed against the Wolves 25-7, 24-26, 25-11 and 25-10.
"At the end of the day we got two conference wins, which is always crucial," Maryville assistant coach
Andrew Garland said. Garland and assistant coach
McKenzie Kramer were managing things in the absence of head coach
Brienna Laskowski, who was attending her sister's wedding.
"I'm a little disappointed in the second match, but you have to give them credit," Garland said. "Wesleyan played well. But it's about what we do and the standard we want to play. At the end of the day, it's two wins. We will take it.
"We've got a big match Tuesday night at Asbury. We are 11-2 in the conference – I'll take it all day long."
Huntingdon Always Tough
Against Huntingdon, the opening set was a seesaw battle. Maryville led 5-1 early, the teams fought through ties at 9-9, 10-10, 11-11, 12-12, 13-13 and 14-14, and then the Scots broke on top again 18-14. But an 8-2 Hawks run put Huntingdon in front 22-20. A pair of
Kenzie Brewster kills tied it 22-all, and the score was tied at 23-all, 24-all and 25-all before
Reese Bailey's kill put the Scots in front by one. A Hawks attack error handed Maryville the set 27-25.
In total, there were 13 ties and three lead changes in Set 1.
Set 2 saw an early Huntingdon lead and then another series of ties in the middle points. Maryville took the lead for good at 17-16 as part of a 7-0 run that made it 21-16. The Hawks drew no closer than three and Maryville prevailed 25-20.
Maryville controlled Set 3. After an early 5-3 deficit, the Scots went on an 8-1 run highlighted by a pair of
Cailin Mastropasqua aces and two Bailey kills. That 11-6 lead was still just 16-13 when Maryville ended the match with a 9-4 spurt. Mastropasqua had three kills and
Landry Frisch ended it with a kill for the 25-17 decision.
Scots Bounce Back
Against Wesleyan, Maryville was in command except for that crazy second set. The Wolves in Set 2 had things clicking and jumped out to leads of 5-1 and 9-3. Maryville closed within 12-11 on an
Izzy Freeman kill but then Wesleyan scored nine straight to go in front 21-11, aided by four MC attack errors and one bad set attempt. Maryville rallied withing 21-20 and tied the score at 23-23 and 24-24. But an MC attack error and Sadiya Kuyateh's kill iced the first Wesleyan set win over the Scots 26-24.
Maryville for the match attacked at a .206 percentage, but in that second set it was .000 with 11 errors. The Wolves took advantage by playing their best set of the match and caught the Scots in coast mode. Wesleyan out-blocked the Scots for the match 7-4.
Bailey finished with 13 kills in both matches. Mastropasqua had 11 against Huntingdon and 13 against Wesleyan, while Brewster contributed 10 versus Huntingdon.
Katelyn Eldred posted 10 service aces and 35 digs across the two matches, and the assist leaders were
Megan Fairburn with 43 and Dakotta Vaiese with 37.
Maryville improved to 18-7 and 11-2 in conference. Huntingdon is 11-18 and 7-6, and Wesleyan falls to 2-17 and 1-13. Asbury stands at 15-6 overall and 10-1 in conference after Thursday's 3-0 defeat at Covenant. The Eagles host Belhaven and Agnes Scott on Saturday before welcoming Maryville for a Tuesday night match.
