Women’s Volleyball Loses to NE10 Heavyweight AIC

COLCHESTER, Vt. – The Saint Michael’s College women’s volleyball team lost to Northeast-10 Conference heavyweight American International College, 3-0 (25-12, 25-11, 25-18), on Saturday in the Ross Sports Center. The Yellow Jackets were runners-up at the past two NE10 Tournaments.

RECORDS

• Saint Michael’s (1-10, 0-7 NE10), AIC (19-6, 6-2 NE10)

SAINT MICHAEL’S LEADERS

• Senior Abby Gallagher (Kingston, Mass./Silver Lake Regional), 6 kills, 4 digs
• Junior Caroline Curley (Duxbury, Mass./Duxbury), 6 kills
• First-year Alexandra Báez Rentas (San Juan, Puerto Rico/New Dimensions), 8 assists, 9 digs, 2 kills
• First-year Sydney Krause (Saginaw, Mich./Valley Lutheran), 9 assists
• Senior Jaeden Cruz (Makakilo, Hawaii/Saint Francis School), 7 digs, 2 aces
• First-year Aaliyah Huihui-Martinez (Salinas, Calif./Notre Dame), 6 digs
• First-year Syrah Wright (Richmond, Vt./Mount Mansfield Union), 6 digs
• Junior Beth Syverson (Huntington, Vt./Mount Mansfield Union/Emmanuel [Mass.]), 3 kills, 2 blocks
• Sophomore Caitlin O’Connor (Bourne, Mass./Bourne), 3 kills

OPPONENT LEADERS

• First-year Paola Soto-Burgos, 9 kills, .353 hitting
• Junior Lyanne Hernandez, 8 kills, .421 hitting, 9 digs
• Sophomore Naomi Eckert-Rivera, 32 assists, 7 digs, 2 blocks
• Junior Amanda Rodriguez, 10 digs

MATCH FACTS

• AIC extended its winning streak to 12 matches.

THE ACTION

• Gallagher dropped a kill and an ace to give Saint Michael’s a 2-1 edge in the opening set before graduate student Andrea Serra-Rosa notched a pair of aces in a 5-0 response for AIC. First-year Jillian Orth‘s (Bourne, Mass./Bourne) ace kept the hosts within 9-7, but Serra-Rosa had four kills in a 9-1 stretch that put the Yellow Jackets up 18-8, and three straight Hernandez kills ended the set.
• Eckert-Rivera notched an ace to make it 3-0 in favor of AIC during the second set before Cruz’s ace capped a 4-2 run that brought Saint Michael’s within 5-4. Three different Yellow Jackets had kills in a 4-0 counter, and the Purple Knights were still down just 12-7 on a Syverson kill before yielding 13 of the final 17 points.
• Set No. 3 featured nine ties and five lead swings. Back-to-back Soto-Burgos kills gave AIC a 5-2 edge before Cruz dropped consecutive aces to cap a go-ahead 4-0 run. Three straight errors put the visitors in front, but the hosts took the lead again three different times, including on a Gallagher kill at 15-14 and thanks to an error at 16-15. From that point, the Yellow Jackets ended the match on a 10-2 run.

NEXT SAINT…