Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
2-3
Santa Clara
4-0
Santa Clara Downs Volleyball in Home Opener
September 02, 2014 | Volleyball
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WEST POINT, N.Y. - The Army volleyball team hosted Santa Clara on Tuesday night at Gillis Field House in its home opener and was dealt a 3-0 defeat. Santa Clara took the opening set 25-21, won the second 25-20 and closed the match with a 25-18 third-set victory.
Army dipped to 2-3 on the season, while Santa Clara improved its unblemished record to 4-0. The match was the first-ever meeting between the two schools.
"Santa Clara is a very good team. They are well coached, very athletic and play well together," head coach Alma Kovaci said. "I thought our team did very well offensively. Vanessa Edwards did a very good job with the offense, but where we struggled was serving, passing and on defense. We had 11 reception errors, which was the game right there. I was proud of the team for fighting and I was very happy with the attacking, we just have a lot of work to do on our back row game and once we get there, we are going to be very good."
Rookie Amber Clay led Army with 10 kills in the loss, while reigning Patriot League Rookie of the Week Carolyn Bockrath contributed eight with a .727 hitting percentage. Junior setter Vanessa Edwards' 27 assists paced the offense and she also tied for the team lead with six digs along with senior Deanna Dalton.
For Santa Clara, Nikki Hess (12) and Sabrina Clayton (11) recorded double-digit kills. On the defensive side, Danielle Rottman had a match-high 12 digs. Kirsten Mead posted 38 assists in the win for the Broncos.
The first two sets of the match were similar in that Santa Clara pulled away midway through each period. With the score knotted at 14-14 following a block by Olivia Fairfield and Edwards, the Broncos distanced themselves by scoring five consecutive points that proved to be the difference in the score. In the next set, Army was serving at 14-14 after a kill by Bockrath, but Santa Clara again put together five straight points to make it 19-14. The Broncos' lead stretched to 22-16 before three straight tallies by Army cut the deficit in half. From there, Santa Clara closed the set with three of the final four points to grab a 2-0 advantage in the match.
Set three saw Santa Clara take a quick 5-2 lead it never relinquished, despite numerous attempts by Army to tie the score. Each time the Black Knights narrowed the gap to one or two points, Santa Clara found an answer and eventually took the set 25-18.
Next up for the Black Knights is a five-match road trip, starting with a matchup with Long Beach State as part of the Long Beach State Mizuno Invitational on Sept. 5 at 10:30 p.m. ET.
