Sept. 3, 2007

Final Stats

Complete Box Score in PDF Format

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - The Navy volleyball team tallied its third sweep in as many matches and improved to 4-1 on the season with a 32-30, 30-13, 30-15 victory over Wagner, Monday afternoon at the Spiro Sports Center on New York's Staten Island.

"We struggled to close out the opening game, but once we did we kept our focus and played very well over the final two games of the match," said Navy head coach Mike Schwob. "Learning how to play a complete game and being able to close them out is something we need to improve on in order for us to be successful."

The Mids scored the opening five points of game one and held a sizeable lead throughout the frame, including advantages of 17-10, 24-18 and 28-21. From there, however, the Navy offense committed six attack errors to allow the Seahawks to eventually tie the game at 29-29.

Navy took a 30-29 lead following a service error from Wagner, but Abbie Merkl (So., Upper Marlboro, Md.) committed a service error of her own to again tie the game at 30-30. A Jessie Sims (Jr., Etowah, N.C.) kill ended the next point and gave Navy its third opportunity to win the game, which the Mids converted when Rachel Dougherty (Sr., Derwood, Md.) knocked down a kill of her own.

After the opening game drama, the Mids jumped out to big leads in games two and three and held those advantages to record the victory.

Navy hit just .023 in game one, while Wagner hit .154. Over the next two games, however, the Mids tallied a .343 attack percentage (29-7-64) and held the Seahawks to a -.119 percentage (9-17-67).

Dougherty tallied 13 kills and just one hitting error on 26 swings for a .462 attack percentage to lead all players offensively in the match. Defensively, Merkl hauled in a match-high 12 digs, one more than teammate Aimee' Burns was credited with.

Navy will play host to the annual Trident Classic this weekend in Macdonough Hall, with round-robin matches between Central Connecticut State, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Marist slated for Friday and Saturday.