Nov. 6, 2007

Final Stats

Complete Box Score in PDF Format

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- After comfortably winning the opening two games of the match, the Navy volleyball team rallied from a 10-5 deficit in game five to post a 30-17, 30-24, 25-30, 30-32, 15-13 victory over UMBC Tuesday night in Macdonough Hall. Both teams have now compiled 19-11 records on the season.

"We have talked all year about the imprtance of playing a complete match," said Navy head coach Mike Schwob. "We started off very well tonight, but UMBC really picked up their game as the match went on and we didn't answer as quickly as we needed to. After going into a fifth game and finding ourselves down by five points, however, we showed a lot of heart in coming back to win the match."

The decisive fifth game saw UMBC score four unanswered points to take an 8-4 lead then, following a kill from Rachel Dougherty (Sr., Derwood, Md.), built its lead to 10-5 on back-to-back kills from Bridget Scheetz. A UMBC service error returned the serve to Navy, then consecutive attack errors from the Retrievers allowed Navy to pull to within two points at 10-8. After Jessie Sims (Jr., Etowah, N.C.) dropped in a kill and UMBC committed another attack error, the game was tied at 10-10.

Ashley Oscars knocked down a kill to give UMBC an 11-10 lead, but a blocking error by the Retrievers tied the score at 11-11. After the two teams traded kills to make the score 12-12, Oscars committed an attack error to give Navy a 13-12 lead. UMBC's Tiffany Johnson answered with a kill to tie the game for the sixth time at 13-13. Both teams had swings to score the all-important 14th point, but the Mids were able to win the point when Dougherty blocked Britney Hodson. The next point was up for grabs again, but Dougherty pounded down her career-high 30th kill of the match to end the two-hour contest.

Navy held UMBC to hitting percentages of .049 and .065 in winning the opening two games. The Mids scored 10 of the first 11 points of the match to win game one, then used a 5-0 run to build a 27-19 lead in the second game.

UMBC held a 20-19 advantage late in the third game before going on a 6-1 run to take a 26-20 advantage and extend the match to a fourth game.

The fourth game was close from start to finish and eventually featured 18 ties. UMBC held three-point leads at both 27-24 and 28-25, but back-to-back kills from Sims and Alexa Gibbs (Jr., Springfield, Ill.) and a service ace from Aimee' Burns (Sr., Dallas, Texas) tied the game at 28-28. Gibbs and Abbie Merkl (So., Upper Marlboro, Md.) teamed up for a block to allow Burns to serve for the match at 29-28, but Gibbs herself was blocked by Katrina Carrick and Scheetz to tie the game at 29-29.

UMBC's Hodson stepped to the service line and committed an error, giving the Mids their second chance to serve for the match. The Retrievers erased match point again when Scheetz knocked down a kill to tie the game at 30-30. Oscars promptly dropped in an ace, then Scheetz and Stacey Carroll combined for a block of Sims to force the fifth game.

Navy as a team knocked down 67 kills and posted a .160 attack percentage, while UMBC finished with 64 kills and hit .124 for the match. Navy held a 10-5 lead in service aces and recorded 11.0 team blocks to 9.0 for UMBC. The Retrievers, meanwhile, hauled in 99 digs to 86 for the Mids.

Dougherty became just the fourth Navy player since 1994 (when records became available) to record 30 kills in a match and the first since Ashley Van Hartesvelt accomplished the feat with 32 kills during the 2003 season. The lone additional Mid to reach double figures in kills was Sims with 16. Defensively, Sims led Navy with 23 kills, while Marissa Watson (Jr., Redondo Beach, Calif.) grabbed a career-high 21 digs and Burns contributed 18 digs. The top blocker for the Mids was Krista Eschelman (So., Germantown, Md.) with six.

Four players tallied double figure kills for the Retrievers, with Scheetz tallying a team-high 16 and Oscars finishing with 15. The player of the night for UMBC was libero Marisa Gross who grabbed 29 digs and committed just one receiving error off of the Navy serve.

Navy will close its regular season this weekend with matches Friday at Lafayette and Saturday at Lehigh. Navy enters the week in fourth place in the Patriot League and in control of its own destiny in terms of qualifying for the Patriot League Tournament.