KEENE, N.H. –
Reece Connors fell two aces shy of matching a single-match record while
Sarah Bartels and
Bella Bacon added nine kills apiece as the Keene State College women's volleyball team had no issues extending their winning streak to seven matches, blowing past New England College 3-0 (25-20, 25-9, 25-17) in a non-conference matchup Thursday night at Spaulding Gymnasium.
Playing their final home game before the playoffs, KSC (14-8) improved to 9-2 at Spaulding Gymnasium this season, where they are hitting .240 as a team and have a 103-59 edge in aces over their opponents.
Both things continued on their home court tonight as the Owls had a 41-19 advantage in kills, 13-4 in aces, and limited New England College (12-11) to a .042 attack percentage including 10 kills and 10 errors over the final two sets.
KSC was in command throughout, opening a 12-7 lead in the first after scoring three straight including an ace by Bacon and a kill by
Sarah Bartels. A spike by Connors later made it 16-10, and the Owls let the Pilgrims score consecutive points just twice in the set before the visitors tallied three straight to make it 23-20 in a short-lived comeback attempt.
Colleen Fraser and Bacon immediately responded with spikes to give the Owls a 1-0 lead in the match.
Keene State scored seven of the opening 10 points in the second and hit NEC with a huge haymaker in the set, at one point scoring 13 consecutive points to turn an 8-5 advantage into a 21-5 rout. Bacon had four kills during the onslaught alone – nearly as many as the Pilgrims had in the set (five). NEC finally ended the streak on a KSC miscue, but the Owls ended the frame on a highlight-reel kill from
Alexis Small, who dove and got a fist on a Pilgrims' attack and it fell into the back right corner on the opposite side, and an ace by
Shaunah Bracken as NEC did not get to double-digits.
Off a 25-9 set victory, the Owls seemed to be well on their way right away in the third, rolling out to a 9-4 lead with a third of those points coming on aces. But the visitors had other ideas, answering with their biggest surge of the night, outscoring KSC 9-2 over the next 11 points to take their first lead of the night at 13-11. The Owls were aced once and blocked twice in that span, but quickly rebounded, ripping off five straight points to retake a three-point lead with two consecutive blocks followed by two consecutive
Marina Miller kills. NEC tied it once more with three in a row of their own, but Connors and Miller stuffed LisaRaye Placencio before KSC fired down four straight kills as part of a 6-0 burst that made it 22-16. They closed the match by scoring nine of the final ten, with Connors fittingly adding two more aces to her season-best total for the final two points. She fell one short of matching Small's career-best of eight set last year against Curry College and two short of Jamie Levine's nine against the University of Maine-Machias on Halloween in 2009.
Bartels hit .286 while racking up her nine kills while Bacon connected at a .333 clip and added 14 digs. Dottin had eight kills on 15 total swings (.467 pct.) while
Ava Harkins had a match-high 16 assists and Miller a match-high 16 digs.
Teagan Saner and Emma Bernard had four kills apiece to pace NEC, who fell to 1-8 all-time in the head-to-head series against KSC and has lost five straight.
The Owls return to action on Halloween at 1:00 p.m. with a tri-match at Smith College (22-4, 8-1 NEWMAC) that also features Westfield State University (8-12, 4-1 MASCAC). The Pioneers are receiving votes in the most recent Top 25 poll and have been in and out of the rankings this season while also sitting at No. 22 in the most recent NCAA Power Index (NPI) list.
