Gallery
MARYVILLE – Sewanee pushed Maryville to a five-set match here Tuesday night before the Scots fought back for a 3-2 victory and win No. 21 on the season.
Set scores were 25-14, 22-25, 19-25, 25-9 and 15-13, with Maryville improving to 3-0 this year in five-set matches.
It was a playing-from-ahead approach by the Scots after falling behind 2 sets to 1. Sets 2 and 3 saw a combined 11 tie scores and seven lead changes, with Sewanee dictating play throughout. After a 1-1 tie early in the fourth set, Maryville led the rest of the way in Sets 4 and 5, although that fifth set was a tight one.
"Yeah, I just told them we weren't losing this match," Maryville head coach
Brienna Laskowski said of her late-match messaging. "We were not losing, and they bought into that. They looked really relaxed going into the fifth, and this is a team that sometimes tenses up a little bit because we do have some youth. But they just settled in."
Home-Court Magic
Maryville finishes its home slate at 8-4 and improves to 21-8 overall. It is the most wins for the Scots since they went 22-9 two years ago.
"We've played really well at home this year, and maybe that was a part of our success tonight," Laskowski said. "Once they got their mojo again in the fourth set, it was ours to win at that point."
Maryville in the fifth set went up 3-0 and 6-1 before Sewanee came alive. The Tigers fought within 8-7 and the race to 15 points was on.
Kenzie Brewster's kill and a
Leeann Maysonet Robles service ace pushed the Scots in front 10-7, only for the Tigers to score the next two.
Brewster's kill made it 12-10 Scots and
Cailin Mastropasqua's kill made it 13-11.
Landry Frisch iced the win with a kill for the winning 15th point.
Mastropasqua and Sewanee's Savannah Gann both posted double-doubles for their teams. Mastropasqua finished with a match-high 15 kills and added 10 digs, while Gann contributed 12 kills and 11 digs.
'She's a Big Dog'
Laskowski has nothing but praise for Mastropasqua, her junior outside hitter from Murfreesboro.
"She's just grown so much in her role as an outside, as a six-rotation outside, and each match she gets better and better," Laskowski said. "Tonight, she got stuffed right away but that didn't stop her from swinging, and that's Cailin in a nutshell.
"She's a big dog, too. She's awesome. She's incredible."
Early Sewanee errors put the Tigers in a first-set hole. Sewanee hit at a minus-.310 rate in Set 1, with 14 errors. Maryville in Set 1 hit at .000 with five errors.
Set 2 saw the Scots continue to scuffle in the attack. The Scots attacked at .196 in Set 2 and .032 in Set 3.
"Two and three, we just didn't manage our first contact very well," Laskowski said. "Serving wasn't great at all, and neither was our defense, where we were out of position a few times.
"We couldn't slow them down at the net, our block was either early, late, or too far in or too far out, so we really struggled with that. But we switched into the fourth set and the message was, 'Guys, it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity to go five and you can either rise to the occasion or fall short and take a loss.' They were just fired up tonight after getting our tails handed to us in those two sets, so, I mean, they really turned that switch, which was nice."
Best Results Late
The change was evident immediately, as Maryville attacked in Set 4 at a .480 clip. In Set 5, Maryville brought home the win with a .235 attack rate. The Scots committed just two errors in each of the final two sets.
In addition to Mastropasqua,
Reese Bailey finished with 12 kills and a .400 attack percentage. Brewster also hit at a .400 clip with eight kills in 15 attacks.
Dakota Vaiese, who was honored before the match for reaching 1,000 career assists, added 19 more to her total while Maysonet Robles finished with 16.
Katelyn Eldred pitched in 18 digs and
Ashley Hilbelink added 11.
Next for the Scots is a weekend at the Emory Invitational in Atlanta. Maryville takes on Randolph-Macon (11-12) in a Friday match at 4 p.m. Saturday, the Scots meet No. 14-ranked Washington & Lee (26-2) and then take on host and No. 5-ranked Emory (20-1).
"We're playing some incredible teams with incredible coaching staffs," Laskowski said. "The biggest thing about those teams is they are all extremely disciplined, and it's great for our players to see teams like that.
"I expect us to go out and compete and give it our all and, at the end of the day, we still want to win ball games. Those are excellent teams to prepare us to play big teams like Covenant and Asbury, who have given us a run for our money all year this year. So, we are excited."
Maryville has clinched the No. 2 seed in next week's Collegiate Conference of the South Volleyball Tournament and plays Nov. 15 against the winner of Covenant vs. Piedmont.
