Newburgh, N.Y. – The Mount Saint Mary College Women's Volleyball team opened the home schedule on Tuesday night with a 25-20, 25-18, 26-24 non-conference win over the visiting City College of New York. Senior Nicole Spinelli (Wantagh, N.Y.) led the offensive attack with 12 kills.
 
After a back-and-forth start to the match, the Knights used a 7-1 run that featured kills from Spinelli and Morgan Burke (Ringwood, N.J.) along with a service ace from Burke. After withstanding a quick 3-1 spurt from the Beavers that pulled it to within 22-18 late in the frame, the Mount scored three of the final five points, including a pair of winners from Madelyn Barberan (Fishkill, N.Y.), to open a 1-0 lead.
 
Mount Saint Mary recorded 12 kills in the opening frame and hit .171 as a team, holding the Beavers to only nine winners and a .111 attack percentage.
 
The Knights and Beavers battled closely in the second frame, until the Mount closed the set with seven of the final nine points to open a 2-0 lead in the match. The Mount took advantage of three CCNY attack errors and used kills from Alex Klesin (Glendale, N.Y.) and Emily Mazzurco (Middletown, N.Y.) to spark the closing run.
 
Mount Saint Mary produced 10 kills and four service aces in the middle frame and held CCNY to just six kills and -.048 hitting.
 
Mount Saint Mary found itself trailing 21-20 late in the third frame, but rebounded with a kill from Spinelli to even the score and received back-to-back winners from Renee Hydo (Bethpage, N.Y.) and Burke to close out the win after CCNY knotted the score at 24-24.
 
Mount Saint Mary produced 15 winners in the final frame and hit .216 to go along with four more service aces.
 
Spinelli reached double-figures in kills for the first time in 2018, leading all players with 12 and hitting a blistering .579 in the contest. She added two total blocks to the winning effort.
 
Klesin put away eight winners for the Knights on Tuesday and contributed three digs, while Burke put away six kills and hit .364 in the win to go along with three service aces and a block. Barberan closed a strong night with four kills, two aces and 10 digs for the Mount.
 
Senior Kim Gries (Hicksville, N.Y.) handed out 17 assists in two sets of work and added an ace with McKenna Cronin (Prospect, Conn.) contributing two service aces and Hydo putting down four kills in the win.
 
CCNY was led by six winners from Kayla Oge who added three blocks, while Cha-Neice Gordon led all players with 11 digs and chipped in with five kills. Dzeneta Harambasic finished off the night with 19 assists for the Beavers.
 
Overall, Mount Saint Mary finished the night hitting .163 as a team and held the advantage in kills 37-23 and service aces 11-6.
 
At 2-7 overall on the season, Mount Saint Mary returns to action on Saturday when it travels to Pratt to take on the host Cannoneers and Rosemont.