Keene State volleyball was unable to find a win against the Corsairs of UMass Dartmouth, losing with a final match score of 3-0. Last year, the Owls took down the Corsairs in five sets.
Junior Molly Wetherbee and sophomore Gigi Stake both had nine kills each, yet Corsair’s junior Chelsea Sanker had a total of 15 kills, helping her team find another win. Dartmouth has won six of their last seven matches. Right now the Owls are currently hitting .137 as a whole, 32 points lower than last season’s .169 mark. They currently are fifth in the Little East conference, with a 2-2 record.
The Owls found a lead in the beginning of the first set. This made the Corsairs call a time-out to regather themselves. Following the time-out, the Corsairs scored eight consecutive points and kept a similar momentum for the rest of the match. The Owls trailed behind for the rest of the set, keeping it around a five point difference, but unable to close the gap. The first set’s final score was 25-19 Dartmouth.
The second set saw a fire light under Sanker as she scored the first two points and found nine kills in the set. The Owls fought to keep pace with the Corsairs, at one point only trailing behind by one, at 5-4. This didn’t last long as Corsair got five consecutive points, but Stake was able to find two kills and help the Owls get the match to 10-7. Multiple errors from KSC allowed UMD to pull away again, finding their way to 19-12. Another push from the Owls closed the gap a bit, just not enough at 21-17. In the end, UMD found the points they needed and were able to close the set at 25-21.
It was all or nothing in the third set for the Owls, but Dartmouth was able to find multiple scoring streaks again in this set. A kill from first-year Alexis Small brought the Owls close with only a two point difference at 19-17, but it wasn’t enough in the end. Small’s kill was the only kill over the final 17 points in the match. UMD found another five consecutive points, with the Owls only scoring one more before the end of the match. The third set ended at 25-18 and the matches final score was 3-0 UMass Dartmouth.
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