Tigers win in straight sets over Sea-Hawks
Dalhousie extends its win streak to three games and improves to 3-1 this season.
By: Jack Longo
The Dalhousie Tigers Women's Volleyball team defeated the Memorial Sea-Hawks at Dalplex on Friday night. The Tigers' win was their third straight and kept the Sea-Hawks winless on the season.
It was a back-and-forth first set between the Tigers and Sea-Hawks, with neither team able to fully gain the upper hand.
Dalhousie looked to set the tone within seconds of the game starting thanks to an emphatic kill from Grace Calnan (Dartmouth, NS) and two more quick points. But the Sea-Hawks went on a 5-0 run of their own to force a timeout from the Tigers.
From there, no team led by more than three until late in the set. Memorial led with the score 11-10, but the Tigers stepped up their play from there and never let the visitors grab the lead again in the first set.
The teams were fairly close in every offensive and defensive category in the opening set, showing how evenly-contested the start of this game was.
However, Dalhousie closed out the set strongly and came away with a 25-19 win to open the contest.
Ella Hornby (Calgary, AB) led the Tigers with five points in the first set, and Halle Wirth and Nella Woelfel (Calgary, AB) had three points each to lead the Sea-Hawks.
After trading points again to begin the second set, Dalhousie's Brett Bolden (Fredericton, NB) set up Paris Stewart (Halifax, NS) for three straight kills to earn a 8-5 lead. The Tigers continued to roll from there, scoring 12 straight points in total to build the lead to 17-5. Memorial struggled to deal with Dalhousie's play at the net for much of the run, but continued to make the Tigers work for every point.
In the end, the second set belonged to Dalhousie and was eventually won 25-9 by the home team.
A bright spot for Memorial was Maria Moores, who had two kills in the set. For Dalhousie, Stewart led the way with four kills.
The Sea-Hawks continued to scrap in the third set, but couldn't stop the momentum Dalhousie had built. Notably, Memorial played with plenty of energy all match, often working hard as a unit to defend the Tigers attacks.
The Tigers looked to be coasting in the third set, and led 17-11 at one point before Memorial won four straight points, including a service ace from Lydia Grawer (St. Louis, MO), to close the gap and turn the end of the set into a much more tense contest.
The third set got as close as 24-23, thanks to a fantastic final push from Memorial. But, Dalhousie was ultimately able to hold on to win the third set 25-23 and take the game in straight sets.
Dalhousie's Alessandra Nadalini (Bedford, NS) was named the Subway Player of the Game with nine digs from the Libero position.
Karen Greek had 15 assists and one solo block to lead the way for the Sea-Hawks.
The second half of this weekend's back to back between Dalhousie and Memorial comes tomorrow at Dalplex. The game starts at 2:30pm.