Newburgh, N.Y. – Junior
Morgan Burke (Ringwood, N.J.) posted a career-high 16 kills and sophomore
Danielle Kralik (Bedford Hills, N.Y.) lifted a career-best 20 digs as the Mount Saint Mary College Women's Volleyball team rallied from a 2-1 deficit to defeat New Jersey City University in five sets by scores of 20-25, 25-19, 20-25, 25-18, 15-11 Thursday night.
The five set marathon featured only two ties and two lead changes as the team starting on serve won the first four stanzas. The Gothic Knights opened the first set with an 8-3 spurt and withstood a five point run from the Mount late in the set to take a 1-0 lead.
The Knights rallied in the second set and got off to a 4-1 start keyed by kills from Burke and
Alex Klesin (Glendale, N.Y.). The Knights put away 14 kills in the second frame and hit .267 as a team on its way to knotting the match at 1-1.
NJCU came right back in the third frame and used three straight service aces from Shaylah Ware to spark a 4-0 opening run. The Mount would climb back to within 15-14 on a Burke ace, but the visitors put together a 5-1 run to open a 20-15 lead. The Mount got back to within three points twice but an error and a kill from Diana Trochimowicz gave the Gothic Knights a 2-1 lead in the match.
Mount Saint Mary got the match even for a second time in the fourth, scoring four of the first five points of the frame. The Knights never let NJCU get even in the match and finally pulled away with a 4-0 closing run to win its second set of the night. Four different Knights;
Nicole Spinelli (Wantagh, N.Y.), Burke,
Renee Hydo (Bethpage, N.Y.) and
Kim Gries (Hicksville, N.Y.) produced kills over the four-point spurt.
With the match tied at 2-2, the Knights used a 6-0 run to open a 10-2 lead in the deciding set. Gries and Spinelli produced kills over the run with Burke adding a service ace. Leading 14-6 in the set following an
Emily Mazzurco (Middletown, N.Y.) kill, the Knights held off the Gothic Knights following a five point run. After an Amber O'Donnell kill that pulled the visitors to within 14-11, the Mount received a winner from Kralik to close out its fifth win in its last six outings.
Burke had a big match for the Knights, putting away a career-high 16 kills and hitting an efficient .314 in the contest. She added three service aces and four total blocks to the winning effort. Klesin put away 11 winners for the Mount to go along with seven digs, while Spinelli finished with nine kills and hit an even .400.
Kralik reached the 20 dig mark for the first time in her career on Thursday and finished the night with eight kills and a pair of aces.
Klaire Wall (Point Pleasant, N.J.) finished off a solid night with 14 digs and a pair of aces.
Gries led all players in the match with 41 assists and finished a double-double effort with 11 digs. Sophomore
McKenna Cronin (Prospect, Conn.) equaled the team-high in aces with three on the night for the Mount.
NJCU was paced by 14 winners from O'Donnell and got nine and eight kills respectively from Pamela Florimon and Stephanie Duque. Ware posted 36 assists and seven aces for the visitors with Georgina Rayo lifting a team-high 19 digs.
For the match, Mount Saint Mary finished with 56 kills and hit .206 as a team. The two sides combined for 22 service aces, with the Knights holding a 12-10 advantage in the category. Mount Saint Mary also finished with a slim 4-3 edge in total team blocks in the win.
At 7-9 overall on the season, Mount Saint Mary returns to Skyline Conference action on Sunday when it travels to Old Westbury. The Knights will tussle with the College of Mount Saint Vincent at 12:00 p.m. before taking on the host Panthers at 2:00 p.m.
