Maryland Eastern Shore's (UMES) women's volleyball team fell in a heartbreaker 3-2 to Coastal Carolina before rebounding to cruise past Winston-Salem State (WSSU) 3-0.
The Hawks looked solid, feeling they had something to prove against WSSU in the afternoon match-up. The Rams felt the frustration of the Hawk attack, getting blanked 3-0 (25-13, 25-7, 25-16) to end the event for both teams.
WSSU (0-3) couldn't get anything going on the offensive end. Two players, Jasmine Frazier and Annika Barnwell had three kills each for the Rams and the stats didn't get much better. They totaled two aces and just 12 assists.
"We still gave up too many points," said Head Coach Don Metil. "Most of their points came off of our mistakes and execution errors. We have a lot to work on, but I am proud of how the team came out and quickly handled their opposition."
In a match that took exactly one hour, UMES played 10 players, got 10 kills from Whitney Johnson and eight from Christine Edwards. They served up eight aces, five off of Edwards deadly serve and got 12 digs from Caylin Woodward. Samantha Chukwura tallied four block assists, Edwards had three.
It wasn't so easy earlier in the day.
"We just lost momentum and got out played," said a disappointed Metil after the Coastal Carolina loss. "We were cruising along and came out on fire, jumping on them to win set one, 25-16. But Coastal got it together and we never really countered."
The Hawks appeared to have their first win of the season against the Chanticleers but dropped the second set 25-19. They quickly rebounded for a 25-20 win but then Coastal Carolina seemed to push a little harder and take set four 25-15 and rode the momentum to a 15-9 win in set five. They took the 3-2 decision (16-25, 25-19, 20-25, 25-15, 15-9).
The freshman Edwards was outstanding, pounding out 21 kills and hitting .245. She added two aces, seven digs and a block and a half. Johnson added 15 kills and hit a solid .387 on 31 swings while Woodward had 10 kills.
"We were getting killed in serve/receive," said Metil. "They figured out our weaknesses and made it so Woodward was taken out of the game, which hurt. We missed our injured seniors today."
The Hawks were outblocked 10-4, but UMES makes up for their blocking woes usually on the service end. That wasn't the case against the Chanticleers, as they served up just nine aces, well below their usual percentage. Christina Estebane', Chanita Wesley and Woodward had two aces each. Estebane' had 44 assists.
Coastal Carolina rode the arm of Chelsy Kimes and Megan Bickford who had 17 and 12 kills respectively while they tallied 11 aces, four from Kimes. They got five and a half blocks from Jill Nyhof.
The Chanticleers fell to Virginia Tech later in the day to finish 2-1 overall while UMES
returns home 1-2.