NEW LONDON, Conn. –
After falling to Conn College last year for the first time in over a decade, the Bears got back in the win column vs their neighbors to the north tonight with a 3-1 win(25-18, 25-15, 22-25, and 25-16). The Camels drop to 1-3 on the year with the loss. They will head to Hartford tomorrow for a tri-match with the Hartford Hawks and Fitchburg State Falcons. Coast Guard gets back over .500 with the win, now sitting at 3-2.
The match did not start the way the Bears wanted, dropping 12 of the first 17 points of the evening. Trailing 12-5, Coast Guard took off. A four-point run highlighted by
Abby Schweitzer (Emmaus, Pa.) and
Alaina Corbin (Stafford, Va.) kills brought the Bears within reach when the media timeout hit at 15-12. Out of that timeout, CGA was unstoppable. They scored 11 of the next 12 points, five of which were Schweitzer kills, all with
Julia Gallinger (Garrison, N.Y.) at the service line. Now with a commanding lead, they rode that momentum to a 25-18 set win that was fittingly capped off by back-to-back Schweitzer kills to give the senior hitter nine in the set.
After having to play comeback early in the first set, Coast Guard jumped ahead and stayed ahead in the second. They again showed their affinity for long runs, this set with 10 in a row with
Courtney Shire (Cape May, N.J.) at the service line. Three of the points in the run came from the senior captain Shire on aces.
In the third set, Conn got hot late and took command of the back-and-forth action, winning the final four points to edge out a 25-22 win to stay afloat.
The fourth set started off evenly much like the third, but trailing 7-8, the Bears again went on a patented run to take control. The six straight points gave the Bears a 13-8 lead, minutes later, a four-point run put them completely in control at 17-10. The Bears closed it out at 25-16 with a fitting finishing touch of an
Abby Schweitzer kill, her career-high 18th of the match.
Behind Schweitzer in kills was
Corey Lemmer (San Francisco, Cal.) with 13,
Alaina Corbin with eight, and
Eloise Shirley (Rock Island, Ill.) with seven. Five other Bears recorded kills including libero
Courtney Shire who had perfectly placed bump into the back corner for a kill in the fourth set. Feeding the Bears offense were
Ava Ahokovi (Honolulu, Hawaii) and
Holly Davis (Sisters, Ore.) who combined for 38 assists. Shire was third on the squad in assists with a career-high eight. Tying Shire for the team lead in digs with 20 was
Julia Gallinger, with eight other women recording at least one.
The Bears will look to stay hot tomorrow with a 1:00 pm date with Massachusetts Maritime, again at home. The Buccaneers are currently 2-1 after defeating Thomas yesterday.
