FREDERICK, Md. – The women's volleyball team put together a complete match and never looked back in the 3-0 sweep of Goucher in nonconference play in Woodsboro Bank Arena on Tuesday night.
Inside the Box Score
Cam Madden (Carlisle, Pa./Big Spring) led the Blazers with 13 kills while collecting nine digs.
Brynn Cochran (Frederick, Md./Governor Thomas Johnson) led all Blazers in hitting percentage at 42 percent and provided eight digs of her own.
Maria Ricketts (Adamstown, Md./New Life Christian) finished the night at 21 assists and 10 digs.
Jaylin Anderson (Poolesville, Md./Poolesville) was just behind with 14 assists on the evening.
How it Happened
The match started with an ace by the Gophers and a 2-0 lead to set the tone, but was immediately matched by a seven-point run that included three separate kills by
Cam Madden (Carlisle, Pa./Big Spring).
The Blazers would get into a rhythm of hard hits thanks to Ricketts and Anderson setting the table to get the hitters
Sami Betley (Bel Air, Md./Mercy) and Madden to smother the Gopher defense all the way to a set one win.
The second set provided more of a tug of war with scores being exchanged back and forth until the 9-9 mark. Goucher stacked a couple of attack errors together and participation by Hood's
Mary LeBlanc (Suffolk, Va/Stonebridge) climbed the lead to 16-11.
A variety of different ways that the Blue & Grey provided scores made it hard for the opposition to combat, from
Meara Mason (Easton, Pa./Easton Area) service aces to enforcement at the net by Blazer blockers to push the lead to 21-14.
After a Goucher timeout, the surge led my Grace Prusmack closed the gap finding open spaces on their side of the court and forcing mistakes on a 8-1 run to close the gap to 22-21. Madden would end the threat when she got the space to hit an offspeed shot in front of a defense expecting an aggressive attack to take the second set 25-23.
The third set was dominated by the Blazers and saw new faces in the lineup including
Grace Tamburin (Wheeling, WV./Wheeling Park) and
Tara Gosney (Centreville, Va./Centreville). The strategy continued as Hood would dump the ball to the other side to send the Gophers into havoc and after surviving the opponents return, the Blazers would seize the opportunity on the attack. They would start on a 11-4 run, preventing any self-inflicted errors thus far.
Those errors would appear soon after to give life to the opposition, but the Blazers lacked a bad rotation all night and forced errors on the other side of the net to level out.
Continued setting efforts by Anderson and Ricketts fueled the final stand by the Blazers.
Janiyah Thornton (Waldorf, Md./Southern Maryland Christian Academy) played well at middle blocker on the night and turned up her aggressiveness down the stretch with attacks from above the net that slammed to the floor to send the game into a 3-0 sweep.
For the Opponent
Alex Dzhygit led the Gophers in kills with six.
Analysis
Hood led in assists 41-21
The Blazers hit at a 22.5 percent clip compared to Goucher's seven.
Up Next
The squad will resume conference play this Thursday, October 27 against York College of Pennsylvania at home for their annual Dig Pink Match and Faculty Staff Appreciation game set for 7 p.m. in Woodsboro Bank Arena.
