Shippensburg University’s volleyball team had a stellar week, picking up wins in both the home opener on Tuesday against Jefferson University and the conference opener at Shepherd University on Friday. Junior Emily Gardner was at the forefront of both victories, getting double-digit kills in each match.

Tuesday’s match at Heiges Field House saw the Raiders take down Jefferson in three sets, with set scores of 26-24, 25-19 and 25-18. The first two sets were quite back-and-forth but the third saw Shippensburg go on a 12-3 run in the middle of the match to make it 18-11, and the match was out of reach for Jefferson at the point.

Gardner led the Raiders with 14 kills in the match, with junior Maddie Clabaugh and freshman Gracen Nutt following closely with 13 and 10 each, respectively. Senior Kaitlyn Townsend had two blocks defensively, and sophomore Kearstin Davis starred as setter with 40 assists and zero errors.

Shippensburg led the match in nearly every statistical category, committing six fewer errors than the Rams as well as being much more successful with their attacks, converting 28% compared to just 10% for Jefferson.

Head Coach Leanne Piscotty was pleased with her team’s performance, saying, “We hit 28% as a team … you’re going to win a lot of matches if you can hit that percentage,” and, “We got also a lot of good touches at the net from our blockers.” She also mentioned how great it was to return to Heiges Field House, saying “We’ve had three hard weekends on the road, and it was really great to finally be home.”.

Moving into conference play, Piscotty said “being clean, with efficiency” would be the key to a good conference season, and there was plenty of efficiency in a win Friday night over Shepherd, with the Raiders winning in three sets via scores of 25-23, 25-18 and 25-19.

Shepherd started strong in the first set, taking leads of 12-9 and 21-19, but the Raiders were resilient, taking a 24-23 lead on a Clabaugh ace and winning the set on a Shepherd error. Set 2 saw Shippensburg finish strong, scoring five of the final 6 points in the set. Lastly, Set 3 featured a 13-4 Raiders run to turn a 9-5 deficit into an 18-13 lead. The match finished on a kill from sophomore Isabelle Bombas.

Nutt led Shippensburg in kills this match with 12, with Gardner getting 10 as well. Townsend picked up five blocks in the match, with freshman Shay Kolivoski earning four aces. The Raiders committed three more errors than Shepherd but still had a better attack percentage, connecting on 25% compared to just 21% for the Rams.

Volleyball has another three matches this week, with a nonconference tilt at Chestnut Hill on Tuesday before home conference games against Lock Haven University on Friday at 7 p.m. and against Bloomsburg University on Saturday at 1 p.m., with both conference games at Heiges Field House.

Share