Volleyball Wins Third Straight; 3-1 over Southern NH
MANCHESTER, NH – The Merrimack volleyball team continued its push for the playoffs with its third straight victory, defeating Southern New Hampshire 3-1 Wednesday night.
Game scores were 17-25, 25-14, 25-18, 25-21
The win evens Merrimack's conference record at 6-6, while Southern NH drops to 5-5 in the league. With three conference matches remaining, and all of them at home, the Warriors currently sit in the eighth and final position in the playoff hunt and certainly control their own destiny to earn a spot in the Northeast-10 Tournament.
Molly Cindric (Westlake Village, CA) led the Warriors with her 10th double-double of the season, getting 18 kills and 17 digs to go with two aces. Elyse Lorenz (Frankfurt, IL) also posted a double-double with 43 assists and 17 digs.
"It was a good conference win," said head coach Joey Pacis. "We came out strong but then struggled, and although we took the second, we gave up a lot of unforced errors but still managed to pull out the win. It took a lot of guts to do this on the road and gives us momentum into the weekend."
Merrimack started strong, taking a 7-2 lead, but the Penmen uncorked 10 unanswered points as the Warriors hit just -.076 and the hosts prevailed in the first with a 25-17 victory.
They responded well in the second however, getting 15 kills while scoring 13 of 16 points to take a commanding 22-8 lead in a 25-14 victory.
The teams battled back and forth in the third, before Merrimack made it two straight sets, netting seven of the final eight points for a 25-18 victory.
The Penmen led 14-10 in the fourth, but the Warriors rallied, using a 12-5 run to take a 22-19 lead before sealing the match with three kills from Cindric, one from Jenna Reilly (Northport, NY) and one from Nicole Duarte (Windham, NH) for the 25-21 victory.
Duarte (12 kills) and Reilly (nine kills) also had strong offensive performances, while Alyssa Pickert (Tinley Park, IL) totaled 22 digs.
Merrimack (8-13, 6-6 NE-10) hosts second-place Pace University Friday at 7 p.m. and third-place Adelphi University Saturday at 4 p.m. in two big conference matches at the Volpe Gym.
