Volleyball Stopped at Bryant on Saturday Night
Central travels to Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday night.
The Central Connecticut volleyball team fell to Bryant, 3-1, in its only match of the weekend on Saturday night in Smithfield, RI. The Blue Devils took the opening game, 25-19, but the Bulldogs responded by taking the next three sets, 25-18, 25-16, 27-25. The loss dropped CCSU to 10-11 overall and 7-3 in the Northeast Conference, while Bryant moved to 18-9 overall and 8-2 in the NEC.
Central travels to Fairleigh Dickinson on Friday night for a 5:00 p.m. match.
Junior Madelyn Kaprelyan was the only Blue Devil in double-figures with 12 kills. She added 13 assists and five digs. Senior Raquel Quirarte had eight kills to go with 13 digs, while junior Erin McDermott tallied 21 assists and nine digs. Sophomore Ashlyn Eisenga had 15 digs.
CCSU scored five traight points midway through the opening game to take a 15-10 lead. Senior Kaitlyn Kushman had a pair of aces in the spurt. After a Bryant point broke the run, CCSU would push the lead to 17-11 to take control of the game. Sophomore Emma Henderson would run off three straight kills and McDermott served up an ace to make it 24-16. After the Bulldogs scored three straight points, CCSU won the game on a Bryant error.
The Bulldogs bounced back in the second game, scoring the first four points of the frame and building a 10-5 lead. CCSU would charge back with four straight points and take a 12-11 lead after a kill by junior Morgan Woycik, but Bryant would respond with four unanswered points and take the lead that it would hold until the close of the game.
Bryant never trailed in the third set and did not allow back-to-back CCSU points until a kill by Kaprelyan was followed by a Bulldog error to cut the Central deficit to 10-8. Bryan pushed the lead to 20-13 after three straight points and then closed out the set with a 4-1 run .
In the fourth set, Bryan scored the first four points to take the lead. Central would cut the deficit to 5-4 before Bryant bounced back with five unanswered points to make it 10-4. The Bulldogs would lead by as many as seven points, but CCSU would chip away at the lead. An error would open a 3-0 run, capped off by a solo block by sophomore Samantha McCreath that cut the Bryant lead to 23-22. Central would take advantage of errors to level the match at 25-all before the Bulldogs rallied to score two points and close out the match.
