Hoboken, N.J. – The Stevens Institute of Technology women's volleyball team swept Delaware Valley Wednesday night – 25-15, 25-8, 25-17 – clinching the No. 1 seed in next week's MAC Freedom tournament.
The Ducks close the regular season 23-6 and 6-1 in conference; Delaware Valley's season ends with an 8-18 record and 1-6 mark in MAC Freedom play.
HOW IT HAPPENED
Up 2-1 in the opening set, an
Elle Maggio service ace started a 5-2 spurt for Stevens, with
Cleo Shannon recording a kill and
Vivian Lisboa adding a kill and service ace. Delaware Valley trimmed the gap to 10-7, but Maggio and Lisboa recorded back-to-back kills on two separate occasions, pushing the lead back to 15-8; the two then paired up for back-to-back block assists, growing the gap to 17-8. After the Aggies worked their way back to 18-12, four straight kills from Lisboa,
Mallory Eder,
Meg Dion, and Shannon gave the Ducks their first 10-point lead of the set. Two more kills from Shannon and Dion, plus an Aggies attack error closed out the set.
Three errors, a kill from Maggio, and a Dion/Shannon block assist staked the Ducks the first five points of the second set. After trading the next eight points back and forth, the Ducks reeled off seven straight points, with kills from
Mallory Eder, Lisboa, Maggio (three), plus another Lisboa block, and an Aggies' attack error. After the Aggies got one back, Maggio added two more kills while Lisboa added another kill and service ace, pushing the lead out to 22-5. Another Dion kill, an Aggies' attack error, and
Molly Harris service ace put the Ducks up two sets.
With several Stevens starters on the bench to start the third set, Delaware Valley took the first four points of the third set, then committed three straight errors, bringing the Ducks back within one. The Ducks knotted things at five, but Delaware Valley quickly went back in front 8-5. Following a block assist from Shannon & Dion and kills from Dion and
Sarah Bolduc, the Ducks finally took their first lead of the set at 10-9. Dion and Bolduc sandwiched another kill each between two Aggies' attack errors, growing the lead to 14-9. Kills from Dion and Eder plus several Delaware Valley errors pushed the margin out to 19-11. Two Kileen McNeil kills plus a
Parker Adkins service ace put the Ducks three points from the sweep, which they closed out with a kill from Shannon and two more from Dion.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE
- Stevens moved to 5-0 all-time against Delaware Valley, all five wins coming via sweep.
- Molly Harris surpassed 1,000 assists for the season with another 36, her eighth straight game with at least 30 and 20th such game this year.
- The Ducks moved to 17-1 in MAC Freedom regular season home matches since joining the conference before the 2019 season.
- Stevens came into the night hitting .279 for the season – they finished the night hitting .290. The Ducks defense had also yielded an opponent hitting percentage of .099 – they held the Aggies to 20 kills with 22 errors, a season-low percentage of -.018.
- Stevens has been the MAC Freedom Tournament No. 1 seed in four of five seasons in the conference.
UP NEXT
The Ducks will host the fourth seed Lebanon Valley on Wednesday, November 13 in the MAC Freedom semifinal at a time to-be-determined.
