Shippensburg University´s volleyball team had a busy weekend, playing four matches in three days at the Tony Banner Memorial Tournament hosted by Clarion University. 

While the Raiders dropped the first and the third games of the tournament against Saginaw Valley State and Clarion, they won the second game against Daemen and the fourth and final game against Lake Erie.

The season opener against Saginaw Valley State on Thursday was a hard fought 3-1 loss, with set scores being 21-25, 25-22, 22-25 and 24-26. Throughout the match, both teams were never trailing by more than three points.

Junior Maddie Clabaugh led the Raiders with 12 kills and one block, and sophomore setter Kearstin Davies had 34 assists, 13 digs and three aces. An ace by freshman Shay Kolivoski secured the second set for Shippensburg.

SU struggled at the net and was outblocked 12-4 by Saginaw Valley State.

On Friday, the Raiders started their day with a 3-2 win over Daemen. The set scores were 25-21, 20-25, 25-20, 12-25, 15-13.

Junior Emily Gardner paced SU with 14 kills, 13 digs, three blocks and a hitting percentage of .323. Freshman Gracen Nutt shared the team-high of 14 kills with Gardner and had the game-winning kill. Davis put up 46 assists and eight digs, and Kolivoski added 20 digs to the team effort.

The Raiders´ second game on Friday did not start until 9:50 p.m., and the Raiders struggled against the host of the tournament, Clarion. SU lost in three sets, with the set scores being 18-25, 11-25 and 15-25.

Gardner once again led the team with seven kills. She totaled 21 kills throughout the day and five blocks. Freshman Hailey Cappleman had a team high of three blocks in the game against Clarion.

SU was never able to gain any momentum. Clarion was offensively strong and had more than double the kills than the Raiders with 44-21. The Golden Eagles also achieved double-digit kills in each of the three sets and had a hitting percentage of .386.

The final game of the tournament ended with a Raiders´ sweep over Lake Erie, 25-17, 25-16 and 26-24.

Davis delivered another double-digit assist performance with 23. She also had five digs and served seven aces, a new career high for her. Clabaugh and Gardner led the team with a combined 18 kills. Both contributed nine kills, while Clabaugh had a .438 hitting percentage.

Shippensburg again struggled at the net, being outblocked 10-4, but had 10 service aces to help secure the sweep.

Over the course of the tournament, Davis reached a career milestone. She surpassed the 1,000 career assists mark. In addition , she and Clabaugh were named to the All-Tournament team.

Next weekend, the volleyball team will travel to Murfreesboro, North Carolina, to take on Chowan, Elizabeth City State, Catawba and Lincoln Memorial in the Chowan Tournament from Thursday to Saturday.  

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