The William & Mary volleyball team picked up steam as the night went on Wednesday, playing its best volleyball in the third set and pushing James Madison into extra points before falling 3-0 in the Colonial Athletic Association opener for both teams. The Tribe moves to 6-8 overall, 0-1 in conference, while the Dukes improved to 9-5 on the year, 1-0 in league play.
"I have to give JMU credit," said head coach
Melissa Ferris afterwards, "they are a good team who keeps the pressure on you. We battled in sets one and three and never gave up. In set two, we let them rattle us and we never got in rhythm. Even though we lost, I believe we got better as a program tonight. I look forward to getting back in the gym and continuing to strengthen our overall game."
It was an extremely close match all the way, featuring 34 tied scores and 13 lead changes. The third set alone had 16 ties and five lead changes, seven and three of which came at 24-24 and later. After the Dukes tied the score at 24-all, the Tribe successfully defended four match-points and had two set points of its own, at 29-28 and 30-29, before the host school claimed the 32-30 victory.
Leading the way for the Tribe was junior
Sara Zumbach (Franklin, Tenn.), who made 22 digs and a pair of aces on the night. That was tied for the ninth-most digs ever in a three-set match at W&M. Senior
Gabrielle Pe (Virginia Beach, Va.) had 10 more digs, and freshman
Samantha Conway (Mechanicsville, Va.) had five digs, three kills, and another ace to maintain her third-place ranking in the CAA.
Also of note, freshman
Autumn Brenner (McLean, Va.) had 35 assists and four kills on the night. Offensively, junior
Sydney Biniak (Elkridge, Md.) led W&M with nine kills and seven digs, and freshman
Casey Foote (Prospect, Ky.) paired eight kills and eight digs. Her classmate
Alex Stein (East Setauket, N.Y.) also had eight kills, while
Paige Humphrey (Oak Hill, Va.) had six kills and a team-best two blocks and
Katie Primatic (Pittstown, N.J.) had five more kills.
William & Mary is back in action this weekend, traveling down to Elon, N.C., to face the Phoenix on Sunday at 2 p.m.
