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ANNAPOLIS, Md. â€"â€" The Navy volleyball team concluded play at the Kristen Dickmann Invitational Saturday by splitting a pair of matches at the Wesley A. Brown Field House. The Mids (2-1) posted a four-set (26-24, 25-20, 14-25, 25-17) victory over Coppin State (0-2) and lost in three sets (25-23, 25-20, 25-22) to Delaware (3-0).

Navy had opened the tournament Friday with a four-set victory over New Hampshire, the three-time defending America East Conference Tournament champions.

"Nothing but positives this weekend," said Navy head coach Larry Bock. "We managed to do so many good things, offensively, defensively, with blocking, with serving, with setting. There are a number of things here and there, especially from our last match ... if we had executed we would still be playing right now. But it was all about execution and that will come. Good weekend competitively and we got a great to-do list for the coming week. This was a good tournament, with good competition and we appreciate New Hampshire, Delaware and Coppin State coming in for it."

Navy recorded the opening point of its match against Coppin State, but allowed the visitors to promptly score the next 10 points. The Eagles eventually led by scores of 18-9 and 20-11 before the Mids staged their rally. A kill by Gabriela Martin (Fr., Columbus, Ohio) gave the serve back to Navy, then Sydney Shearn (So., Louisville, Ky.) dropped in a service ace. Those were the initial two points in a 9-0 spurt that tied the frame at 20-20. A sideout gave the Eagles the lead and the serve, but a kill by Shelby McCool (Jr., Eugene, Ore.) was followed by another kill by Martin that gave Navy a slim 22-21 lead.

The teams traded sideouts again (23-22) before a kill by Kelsey Kingsland (So., Blackwell, Mo.) took the Mids to set point with a 24-22 lead. Consecutive attack errors by the Mids allowed Coppin State to tie the score, but Navy gained its third set-point opportunity on a kill by Katie Patrick (So., Aurora, Colo.). Shearn, Navy's libero, set Dorothy Murray (Jr., Harbor City, Calif.) for a kill that gave the Mids the opening set by the score of 26-24.

Navy had a much better start to the second set as it jumped out to a 5-1 lead, but Coppin State slowly clawed back and pulled to within one point at 18-17. A Kingsland kill doubled the lead, then the outside hitter set setter Patricia Mattingly (So., New Albany, Ind.) for a kill to make the score 20-17. Mattingly fed Sarena Seelback (Fr., Chapel Hill, N.C.) for a kill to give the Mids a 21-17 cushion, which was just enough for them to come away with a 25-20 win.

The Eagles took control in the early stages of set three and never let go. Coppin State scored five of the first six points and soon led by double figures at 15-5 on its way to winning the frame (25-14).

The fourth set was tight until the middle part of it. Navy held a 12-11 lead before taking advantages of 15-11 and 18-12. The closest Coppin State would get to Navy over the remainder of the set was five points (18-13) as the Mids closed out the set and the match (25-17).

"There is such a fine line between our team being pretty darn good and pretty darn average," said Bock. "We are learning to make value judgments about any team â€'â€" ourself included â€"â€" and the level of play. We need to execute on our side of the net no matter who we play. One of the best parts of the whole weekend was our rally in set one against Coppin State. They did that on their own and dug themselves out of a deep hole and they know they don't want to dig one that deep again."

Hitting proved to be the difference in the match as Navy tallied 56 kills and a .211 hitting percentage while Coppin State totaled 39 kills and a hitting mark of .120. Helping the Mids in recording those advantages was their posting 12 blocks to just 3.0 for the Eagles.

Individually, both Murray and Martin finished the match with 12 kills, with Patrick adding eight to go along with her six blocks. Shearn snared 24 of Navy's 66 digs in the contest and accounted for two of Navy's six aces.

Navy and Delaware would go toe-to-toe with each other from the start of the match to the finish. The largest Navy lead at any point in the match was four points, while Delaware's largest advantage was its five-point cushion that came at the very end of the second set. Otherwise, the score would be tied 29 times and the lead change hands on 14 occasions.

The opening set was tied at 21 when back-to-back attack errors by the Mids gave the Blue Hens a 23-21 lead. A Patrick kill sliced the lead in half, but that was the first of four-straight sideouts â€"â€" all on kills by the respective teams â€"â€" that allowed Delaware to claim the opening frame.

Delaware used back-to-back points to take an 18-15 lead, but Navy soon fought its way back to within one point at 21-20. Consecutive blocks by the Blue Hens boosted that margin out to 23-20, then a Navy attack error made it a four-point difference. The Blue Hens secured the second set on a kill.

Navy would take its largest lead of the night at 18-14 in the third set, but soon found itself tied at 19-19 and then trailing at 21-20. A Delaware attack error was followed by a Shearn to Mattingly kill that reversed the score and put Navy on top, 22-21. The Blue Hens would tally the ensuing four points on a kill, a block and then two Navy attack errors to end the match.

"This match was a template for what we are going to see down the road in the Patriot League," said Bock. "There is going to be a lot of firepower. Delaware brought good heat from good altitude. We started dealing with it. We were effective through the first parts of each set. We were right there and just couldn't finish it off. Blocking got a little high and shallow, but that is fixable."

Delaware held only a 41-39 edge over Navy in kills, but the Blue Hens held a .242-.119 advantage in hitting percentage. Delaware had nine blocks that were part of the 24 hitting errors by the Mids, while Navy tallied only five blocks and the Blue Hens had just six other attack errors.

Murray paced the Mids with 10 kills, Shearn grabbed 14 digs, and Maggie Phillips (Jr., Leesburg, Va.) had seven kills and 11 digs.

Shearn and Mattingly were Navy's representatives on the all-tournament team. Shearn dropped in a Navy-best six aces and averaged 5.09 digs over the course of the three matches, while Mattingly dished out 9.55 assists per set and grabbed 2.00 digs per set.

Murray led Navy's offensive in the three matches with an average of 3.11 kills per set and a hitting percentage of .233. Patrick totaled 15 blocks, which was good for an average of 1.36 blocks per set. Both Phillips (0.70 bps) and Martin (0.64 bps) had seven blocks, while Olivia Kluger (Jr., Carmel, Ind.) averaged 2.36 digs per set and Phillips matched Mattingly's dig average of 2.00 per set.

"Signs of growth this weekend for us were, obviously, blocking," said Block. "We didn't block so well against Delaware, but it was a good weekend for us blocking-wise. It was the number one, red flag coming out of last season, and I think we are on our way with that. Passing wasn't great this weekend, but it was better than it was (last season)."

Navy will play three matches over the Labor Day weekend at the UMES Invite. The Mids will play the tournament hosts Friday night before taking on Rider and Norfolk State on Saturday.