Volleyball Falls In Straight Sets at Southern Connecticut
New Haven, CT – The Merrimack women's volleyball team fell in straight sets to the Southern Connecticut State Owls on Friday night. With the loss Merrimack drops to 7-11 overall and 0-5 in the Northeast-10 Conference.
"We just came out slow tonight and couldn't regroup," said head coach TJ Hajjar. "We allowed them to get up early in sets and were not able to fight back later on."
Game scores against Southern Connecticut State: 17-25, 20-25, 22-25.
Leading the Warriors offensively was Shaunda Forcier (Gonic, NH) who recorded a team-high nine kills and three digs while senior Brianna Trabucco (Canton, Mass.) racked up 29 assists and seven digs. Freshman Madison Burke (San Jose, Calif.) continued to lead the team defensively as she racked up a team-high 21 digs. Stephanie Sheehan (Smithtown, NY) finished off her night with five kills and 11 digs in the losing effort.
Merrimack was downed in the opening set by the Owls by the score of 25-17. Leading the Warriors in the opening set was Trabucco who recorded nine assists and five digs and Corrine Gosselin (Lawrence, Mass.) finished with a team-high three kills.
The home team took the commanding 2-0 lead as they defeated the Warriors by the score of 25-20 in the second set. Merrimack made a late run in the set to make the score 21-20 in favor of the home team but the Owls finished the game on a 4-0 run to pick up the victory.
Southern Connecticut closed out their three set sweep after downing the Warriors 25-22 in the final set. The Owls hung on in the final set despite a late 5-0 run by the Warriors to bring them within two at 22-24.
The Owls were led by Jade Black who recorded a game-high 13 kills and seven digs while Sarah Beres finished with a double-double with 10 kills and 18 digs. Vanessa Sullivan recorded a match-high 23 digs and Kimberly Lachowicz racked up 33 assists in the victory.
Merrimack (7-11, 0-5 NE-10) will return home for a conference matchup with Franklin Pierce on Tuesday. First serve is set for 7 p.m.
