Volleyball MEAC Media Relations

UMES Picks Up First Win Of Season With 3-0 Victory Over WSSU

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.