Whitney Battoe and the St. Thomas University Volleyball team (13-4, 8-1 SUN) have won their ninth straight match, making it the longest win streak of the Battoe Era. The Bobcats defeated Keiser University (25-7, 5-4 SUN) in three straights sets and took full control of first place in the Sun Conference standings on Wednesday evening.
This was a game that had a lot of weight in the direction that the leaderboard was going to tilt. The Bobcats came in understood what was at stake and went to work. The first matchup between the two teams went to five sets with STU ultimately taking the win on the road.
The first set had the feel the same feel of competitiveness with the back and forth through the first eight points. St. Thomas was able to start distancing themselves when Loreto Nunez-Casal came up with a big kill and then a big block to make it 10-7. The offense had a solid set with a .378 hit percentage just three attack errors and 17 kills.
Set two started a little slow whit Keiser taking a 4-1 lead to open play. The defense from Alexandra MacAskilll and Sana Dennis teamed up to stop the threat and spark a Bobcat rally that went 6-1 for a 7-5 STU lead. Mariana Cova continues to stay consistent as one of the main attackers, sparking another six-point rally that saw the game completely tip in favor of St. Thomas. The Tayla Barnes show turned up as the sophomore was double-dipping with big blocks and crushing kills. Bianca Grassi kept the foot on the pedal with back-to-back service aces that were untouchable. Amanda Allende closed out the set at 25-18.
The third set had the Bobcats open with the first point as Sana Dennis picked up a kill to kick things off. St. Thomas would have full control and leave no room for Keiser to even have hope of forcing another set going 6-1 for the initial rally. Cova continued to close out on kills and her and MacASkill found perfect placements in the deep corners or in the Bermuda triangle. Barnes finished the match with the perfect put away kill on a dig that was unsuccessfully controlled by the Seahawks and flew back over the net.
Set three had the best hit percentage at .500 with just one attack error. Grassi continued to serve up the aces as STU had four in thee set and seven total. St. Thomas hit .402 overall whil holding Keiser to .188 overall.
Box Score Notables
- Second highest hit percentage this season, .408
- Tied for lowest errors in a match, 8
- First time not giving up a service ace to the opposing team
- Longest win streak in Whitney Battoe era, 9
- Allende and Cova both had double-digit kills
- Mariana Cova – 11 kills, .500 hit percentage, fifth double-digit kill match
- Bianca Grassi – 18 digs, four service aces
- Sana Dennis – eight kills, 1.000 hit percentage, 1.5 blocks
- Tayla Barnes – six kills, four block solos
St. Thomas will have another three match week taking on Coastal Georgia on Saturday, October 22, and Webber International, Sunday October 23 in a reschedule contest.
Original source can be found here.
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