The Montclair State University women’s volleyball team knew they needed a bounce-back game against Drew University after being swept in last Saturday’s tri-meet. They got exactly that after rolling past the Rangers 3-1 last night.
Head coach Eduardo Stawinski said his team was well prepared entering the match.
“We’ve had a lot of things that we were practicing, and wanted to implement today that we learned from the weekend,” Stawinski said. “We’ve had very good competition and took a lot from that weekend to fix for upcoming matches.”
Montclair State won three unanswered sets to close out the match.
Courtesy of Matt DeLuca
Stawinski said that the Red Hawks were keyed in on offense during the game.
“There’s a lot of offensive stuff we worked on yesterday,” Stawinski said. “And we also wanted to serve tough because over the weekend we were a little hesitant in that area.”
In the first set, Montclair State got on the board first after a mishap served by Drew University. Immediately the Red Hawks got out to an early 4-2 lead thanks to freshman right side Sarah Capone, and freshman outside hitter Camryn Muuss.
Muuss got three kills for the Red Hawks, but the lead would soon be lost after Drew regained a 12-11 lead, which forced Montclair State to call a timeout.
It was a back-and-forth, but Drew would take the first set, capping off a 6-0 run to finish the frame.
In the second set, Montclair State got on the board first yet again thanks to a Capone kill which sparked a 4-0 run.
Stwainski said that the Red Hawks cleaned up their serving and receiving between sets.
“One of the things I shared with them that I learned from another coach was that we really want to find the 70 percent of where your team plays, that is consistent,” Stawinski said. “We knew that the first set we were not playing well, and our passing wasn’t really broken down with our serve. Let’s change some of these areas, and get better at receiving and serving.”
The Red Hawks would continue this hot start after a kill from Muuss and a service ace from senior libero Katie Rodman. Drew University would be forced to call a timeout after Montclair State built a strong lead.
Montclair State continued playing fast and showed a great display of both defense and offense. Even after Drew would score six straight, it still wasn’t enough, as the Red Hawks would take the second set winning 25-11, and evening the score to 1-1.
In the third set, the Red Hawks started off slow falling behind 8-1, forcing Montclair State to call a timeout early in the set.
After the timeout, the Red Hawks would have a 6-0 run, only being down by one point. In that run, freshman outside hitter Bryn Bautista would have three kills as she led the team with 12 kills on the night.
Montclair State would tie the game 10-10 thanks to an attack error, followed by two kills from senior Rachel Curran giving the Red Hawks the lead in the third set 12-10.
It was a close set, but Montclair State would gain a bit of a cushion thanks to Bautista, sophomore middle blocker Zoey Horn, who finished her night with 10 kills, and sophomore middle blocker Lily Thomas, who finished the night with nine kills.
Stawinski said that the Red Hawks took control after cleaning up issues on their side of the court.
“It was mostly the start, and we’ve made a lot of unforced errors, and when we look at the stats on the bench it shows six of those eight points were our errors,” said Stawinski.
Montclair State would hold on to the lead and win 25-21 thanks to a kill by Curran. The Red Hawks would come back from down as many as six and win the third set, giving them the 2-1 score.
Montclair State's record improved to 7-3 after defeating Drew University.
Courtesy of Matt DeLuca Photo credit: Matt DeLuca
Stawinski said that Montclair State’s servers and outside hitters were able to take over the match.
“Once we got into the groove we had really good servers. If you look at the box score, there’s a lot of contribution from different players,” said Stawinski “But when we have Horn, Thomas, Capone, and our outsiders [Muuss], [Curran] and [Bautista], mixing in it gives us a lot of depth.”
Heading to the fourth set, it was close yet again but, Montclair State would quickly gain a 10-7 lead and never looked back.
Montclair State would roll past their opponents, finishing the last play of the fourth set off an error by Drew University finishing the final set 25-18.
Montclair State would win the match after taking three unanswered sets. They now hold a record of 7-3.
Stawinski said that mixing up the offense helped his team out in last night’s win.
“[We want to] continue to create plays, and we don’t want to be predictable,” said Stawinksi.
