By Rachael Bentley
The CCSU Volleyball team defeated St. Francis in a 3-1 match on Sunday, thanks to a strong showing from the team’s defense.
The Blue Devils won the first set (25-21) and the second set (25-13), but lost the third (28-26) in a back and forth set that required extra points. They made a comeback in the final set with a 25-12 win, which took the match.
Coach Linda Sagnelli credits the team’s win to the hard push from their defense to force SFPA to change their playing style.
“Once we realized that the other team played a majority with their middles, we asked our right sides to go ahead and help our middle to make them do something different,” Sagnelli said.
“Mackenna, without a doubt, shut everything down. She must have had three of four blocks against their middle,” said Sagnelli. “She did a great job at the net for us.”
The Blue Devils recorded 15 blocks as a team and they limited the Red Flash to a .097 hitting percentage.
Senior Jamie Rademacher and Freshman Mackenna Lommori led CCSU’s defense. Lommori posted a match-high 41 assists and 10 digs.
“Mackenna is such a heads up player,” said Sagnelli, “She is just a heads up player, and certainly plays much older than a freshman”.
The teams offense was spearheaded by senior Emily Cochran and sophomore Jamie Rademacher, who both recorded double-digit kills. Cochran recorded 12 kills and Rademacher recorded 11. Rachel Dunlap also got 10 kills during the match.
“Yesterday, I felt like our offense let us down a little during crunch time, and I thought Robert Morris put better pressure consistently through out the match so we talked about that after the match yesterday,” Sagnelli explained. “We also made it one of our goals for today to never step back again, and to keep pushing and pushing.”
Coach Sagnelli could be heard shouting “Be aggressive” from the bleachers, a method that seemed to work in the team’s favor for this match against SFPA.
“I wish we had taken the match in three, and I think we sat back a little bit in the third set, but I am so happy with the way we came out in the fourth set and the offense really took it to them, and the defense set up a great block,” Sagnelli said. “Today went awesome; we rebounded just the way I wanted us too.”
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