MARSHALL, Texas -- Outlasting the Hendrix College volleyball team in a neutral site matchup on Saturday morning, the Christopher Newport Captains improved to 6-4 on the season with a 3-1 win against the Warriors. CNU secured the win by a final score of 19-25, 25-19, 25-17, 30-28.
Sophomore
Emmy Carpenedo kept up her strong play, falling just shy of another double-double with nine kills and eight digs while adding three assists.
Avery Hanly also was flirting with a double-double when she closed out the four-set match with nine kills and nine digs. Senior
Simara Alexander highlighted the attack with a team-high 12 kills while
Alli Pratt and
Carley Coghill each added 10 in the win.
The Captains surrendered the first set, 25-19, but rebounded to sweep the next three to capture their second win in the Lone Star state. The Warriors won nine of eleven points int he middle of the first set to pull away and despite a valiant effort by
Phoebe Adams at the service line, the CNU squad fell behind, 1-0. Adams had back-to-back aces late in the set and kickstarted a tremendous day at the service line for the Captains.
Since 2008 when the NCAA switched to 25-point sets, the Captains recorded 14 aces in a match only twice when CNU dominated from behind the line with 14 on September 4, 2009 against Mary Washington and setting the record with 19 versus Penn State Harrisburg on October 18, 2014. On Saturday, the Captains matched the four-set record since 2008 with 14 starting with the two by Adams at the end of the first set.
In the second set, the Captains fell behind early again and were trailing 10-5 when the Captains flipped the scoreboard with a 10-2 run to take a four-point lead, 16-12.
Lauren Hobbs notched an ace and Hanly had the hot hand with four kills in the burst. Coghill added two kills and and Carpenedo also had a pair. Hendrix evened the match at 18-all but CNU closed it out with a 7-1 clinching run.
Sylvia Wargolet snagged an ace and the set was clinched by another Hanly kill.
CNU dominated the third set and pulled away for a 22-14 lead before finishing out a 25-17 win. In the fourth, the two teams were locked in a back-and-forth affair that went to extra points at the end. The Captains had match point with a 24-19 advantage but the Warriors rattled off six straight points to force extra time. Each team answered the other until it was 28-all on a kill by Coghill. Hanly delivered the historical 14th ace to regain match point and Carpenedo clinched the win, 30-28, on a feed from
Lanie Goff.
Hanly's well-rounded performance saw her hit .227 with nine kills while adding nine digs, four aces, and a pair of assists. Coghill hit a team-best .350 with 10 kills in 20 swings while Pratt hit at a .286 clip with 10 kills on 21 attempts.
Goff had her finest performance as a Captain when she secured 23 digs to lead all players. She also had five assists for CNU.
Christopher Newport continues it's run of games away from home with a trip to Owings Mills, Maryland next weekend as the Captains will take on the host Stevenson University Mustangs on Friday, September 25 at 3:30 p.m. before also facing Notre Dame of Maryland University at 5:30 p.m.
