Press Release Written by Nathan Foltz.
NEWARK, Del. - - The Wilmington University women's volleyball team made a strong comeback attempt Thursday night, but ultimately came up short, falling to West Chester, 3-2, at the WU Athletics Complex.
Set scores for the match were 21-25, 17-25, 25-17, 25-22, and 11-15.
The loss is only the Wildcats' second in their last 13 matches, snapping their most recent winning streak at four. Their record now sits at 14-9, while West Chester improves to 16-5.
West Chester was able to take the first set thanks to a 5-0 run towards the beginning of the scoring and a 6-0 run near the end. An 11-4 Wildcat run was sandwiched in between the Golden Ram action to make it a 15-17 deficit, but it wasn't enough. The second set didn't go much better for Wilmington, as they got in a seven-point hole to start things off down 5-12. Neither squad scored more than twice in a row the rest of the way, with that early gap proving the difference.
Set three continued the back-and-forth nature of the second until the score reached 12-13, at which point Wilmington woke up and scored eight of the next nine points. Wilmington held that lead through the end of the set, forcing a fourth game. Things were looking good for the Cats there too, as they scored the first four points and rode that momentum to a 19-8 lead. The Golden Rams didn't go quietly, though, going 14-5 in the next 19 rallies to cut Wilmington's lead to 24-22 before a West Chester attack error pulled the Wildcats even in the match 2-2.
The Wildcats scored the first two points in set five before yielding nine of the next twelve points to West Chester. Wilmington made one last push to keep the comeback alive with a subsequent 6-3 run to make it 11-12, but the Golden Rams ruined those hopes by scoring the last three points of the match to turn the home crowd away disappointed.
Karla Nunez-Rivera picked up a double-double on the back of a team-leading 16 kills and 10 digs, hitting .289. Addison Hoover (12) and Eliza Schneider (10) also had double-digit kills. Morgan Daniels led the team with 17 digs, while Christine Covello (28) and Cam Justus (18) contributed the lion's share of the team's assists. Chelsea Blaine-Agett and Justus each had four of the team's season-high 17 aces.
The Wildcats will be on the road for their next three games, starting Saturday at Bloomsburg. The opening serve for that match is set for 1:00 p.m. in Pennsylvania.
