Volleyball Stifles Rutgers, 3-0
10/24/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Volleyball
BOX SCORE (.html)
BOX SCORE (.pdf)
SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - The Seton Hall volleyball team had its strongest offensive day of the year, boasting a season-high .435 attack percentage, en route to topping Rutgers, 3-0 (25-19, 25-23, 25-20) , on Saturday as part of the national "Dig Pink" rally against breast cancer. The Pirates had four players record double-figure kills to improve to 9-15 overall and 3-5 in the BIG EAST.
Sophomore Meghan Matusiak (Winfield, Ill.) led the way with 15 kills on a .406 clip. Freshman Morgan DeVries (Grand Rapids, Mich.) committed just one error on 16 attacks for a superb .688 attack percentage and had 12 kills. Junior Sarah Osmun (Crystal Lake, Ill.) posted 10 kills and 13 digs.
Seton Hall got off to a slow start in the opening set, falling behind 9-5 after an ace by the Scarlet Knights (8-15, 1-7). The Pirates chipped away at the deficit and took over the lead, 15-14, on a Matusiak ace. SHU continued to apply pressure and extended the cushion after Olivia Trudeau (Shell Beach, Calif.) set up DeVries for a kill, marking one of her 50 assists on the day to make it 20-16 as the Pirates went on to take the set, 25-19.
In the second, once again, the Hall was slow getting out of the gate and trailed 4-0, but bounced back quickly to tie things up, 6-6. The Pirates took its first lead of the set on a sneak attack kill by Trudeau, and pushed the advantage to 19-14 after a pair of Rutgers attack errors. With a comfortable 22-16 score in favor of SHU, the Scarlet Knights started to mount a rally and rattled of six of the next seven points to pull within one.
Freshman Hannah Hugeback (Virginia Beach, Va.), who continued her strong play since entering the starting lineup last weekend, ended the run with a kill to set up game-point and the Pirates held off the Scarlet Knights to go ahead, 2-0, in the match.
The third set was dominated from start-to-finish by Seton Hall and the Pirates never trailed in the frame. DeVries gave SHU a 9-5 lead early, and the Pirates continued to build the margin as the game went on to finish the sweep.
Seton Hall will travel to Notre Dame next Saturday, October 31, for a BIG EAST contest slated to begin at 2:00 p.m.
