ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – After going 1-1 on the first day of the Eckerd College Classic, the UNCP women's volleyball team suffered a close loss to Barry, 3-1, as well as falling to Eckerd, 3-0, on the second day of the tournament in the McArthur Center.
The Lady Braves (4-4) fell to Barry (6-0) in the first match of the day with scores of 25-23, 20-25, 31-29 and 25-23. The Bucs took an early lead in game one to hold the Lady Braves to a 12-8 and 20-14 scores until the Lady Braves took a six point rally on two kills by Tiara Anderson and one from Allie Schneider as well as a slew of errors on the Bucs. The effort came up short as Barry ended the UNCP rally and game one with a kill by Lanie Muys.
In game two, the Lady Braves took an early 4-0 lead and utilized nine Barry attack errors to win the second set. The Black and Gold started game three with the lead but allowed the Bucs to capture four consecutive points putting Barry up 14-10. UNCP tied the score at 14-14 and remained either one point ahead or behind of the Bucs until Barry posted a kill to put the Bucs up 30-29 before UNCP committed an attack error to end game three. The final game was another close matchup with the score being separated by a maximum four points at the 12-8 mark. A UNCP attack error and a kill by the Bucs concluded the two final plays to give Barry the victory.
The Black and Gold posted a .223 hitting percentage compared to the Bucs' .216 hitting percentage. UNCP posted 56 kills, 54 assists, five service aces, 72 digs and 10 block assists during the match. Anderson tallied a team-best 16 kills on 41 attempts while Shay Peterson registered 12 kills on 21 attacks. Newcomer Ashlyn Rebok controlled 42 assists while Marissa Baker and Rebecca Morgan collected 21 and 17 digs, respectively. Senior Tricia Varno led the team with three block assists while Peterson, Anderson and Hannah Hill each posted two block assists.
Mima Hajdukovic and Tania Torres registered 17 and 16 kills, respectively, for Barry while Muys and Morgan Howard added nine each. Libby Walter posted a team-high 31 assists while Hajdukovic posted 24 and 10 digs. Jenna Duddleston collected a team-best 17 digs while Alicia Guerreo and Taylor Zirwas added 13 and 11, respectively.
UNCP (4-5) lost the second game of the day to host Eckerd (6-1) in 69 minutes. The Lady Braves posted the lowest hitting percentage of the season with a .049 percentage and dropped three straight games with a score of 25-18, 25-11 and 25-14.
Hill recorded a team-best eight kills on 20 attempts while Rebok tallied 19 assists and Baker collected 15 digs. The Lady Braves totaled 30 kills, 26 assists and 32 digs against the Tritons. Eckerd registered 37 kills, 29 assists, 42 digs and six solo blocks. Alex Laton led the Tritons with nine kills while Madison Burr and Bri Smith tallied 13 and 12 assists, respectively. Smith and Hallie Ward posted 12 and 11 digs, respectively, while Ali McAlvany led the team with three solo blocks.
UNCP will look to make the short trip to Fayetteville on Wednesday when it battles region rival Fayetteville State (3-2) in a nonconference matchup at 6 p.m.
