The William and Mary volleyball team opened its weekend with a bang Friday night, acing the test posed by George Mason in a 3-1 victory.  With the win, the Tribe improves to 8-12 overall and 2-6 in the Colonial Athletic Association, while the Patriots fall to 7-13 and the same league record.

One of the Tribe's top performers on the night was sophomore libero Celine Alasomuka (Centreville, Va.), who had a career-high five service aces to go with 18 digs on the night.  Her serving performance is tied for ninth-best all-time at the College in a four-set match, and is the best since Kate Woffindin '06 also had five against Liberty in 2005.  Also having an all-time best performance was redshirt-freshman Paulette Grand Pre (Laguna Beach, Calif.), who had a double-double of 17 kills and 11 digs while taking a career-high 60 attacks (tied for sixth all-time in a four-set match).  Grand Pre also had one of the Tribe's nine aces, as well as contributed on a block.

Redshirt-freshman Monika Stanciauskas (Wheaton, Ill.) continued her hot streak of the past week, scoring a match-high 18 kills while hitting .406, and added four digs, two blocks, and another ace.  Senior Brooke Bauernfeind (Ashburn, Va.) had 10 kills, seven digs, and a team-high three blocks.  Sophomore Julia Swalchick (Melbourne, Fla.) nearly joined the double-digit club, with nine kills, six digs, and a solo block.

Also scoring a double-double was freshman Carolina Rivas (Orlando, Fla.), who had a career-best 11 digs to go with an astounding 51 assists.  Her assist total is just three shy of her career-high 54 that took five sets to accomplish against IUPUI.  Fellow true freshman Manon Murray (Greensboro, N.C.) had a team-best 19 digs, tying her season-best.  Other notables included junior Molly Krull (Raleigh, N.C.), who had eight digs and an ace, and Alexandra Ciaccio (Houston, Texas), with six kills and a pair of blocks.

In the first set, the Tribe took control early, and showed tremendous mettle in weathering a late George Mason run.  Up 20-15 at one point, the College soon found itself down 22-23 after a Patriots block.  Head coach Melissa Aldrich Shelton '91 called a quick timeout to settle any nerves, and her team responded with a kill from Ciaccio to tie the set.  GMU couldn't handle the ball on the next point, and Alasomuka cashed in on set point with her first ace of the evening to put the Tribe ahead 1-0.  The second set was almost a mirror-image of the first, with W&M using two more Alasomuka aces to battle back from a 22-18 deficit to tie the match at 24-24, but this time it was the visitors who earned the final points to even the match score at 1-1.

Coming out of the intermission, George Mason was able to inch ahead to a 12-9 advantage to start the third set.  Stanciauskas, who had only five kills in the first two sets, choose this frame to erupt with two kills on back-to-back points and ignite a 5-0 run for W&M that would later stretch to 9-2, including two more kills and a block for imposing middle.  Whent the run finally ended after an ace from Stanciauskas, the Tribe was in front 18-14, and would never let the Patriots get closer than three the rest of the way.  At the end of the 25-21 win, Stanciauskas had scored seven kills in eight attempts.

The final frame was played even tighter than the first three, with the Patriots trying to extend the match and the Tribe refusing to lose and take any more time than absolutely necessary.  That set alone saw eight lead changes and 10 tied scores, the final coming at 20-20.  From there it was all W&M, with the Tribe scoring five of the final seven points to claim the win.  The final points came on the big arms of Grand Pre, making the score 24-22, and Stanciauskas, who edged past her classmate for the team lead with the winning kill.

William and Mary is back in action Saturday night, hosting league-leading James Madison at 7 p.m.