Women's Volleyball | 9/3/2021 9:05:00 PM
Box Score 1 |
Box Score 2 DETROIT – The West Liberty University volleyball team opened its season on Friday by splitting a pair of matches at the Warrior Invitational hosted by Wayne State University inside the Matthaei Center.
Coach
Riley Schenk's Hilltoppers debuted with an impressive 3-1 win against defending PSAC champion East Stroudsburg in the afternoon before dropping a 3-0 evening match to host Wayne State.
The Black and Gold stumbled out of the gates in their match against ESU as the Pennsylvania squad held on for a 25-19 win in the opening set. It was all Hilltoppers after that, however, as West Liberty won the next three sets by scores of 25-16, 25-12 and 25-18 to wrap up the convincing victory.
Two-time All-MEC middle blocker Maddie Clayton was virtually unstoppable. The 6-5 grad student hammered home a career-high 21 kills to go along with a match-high 4 blocks while hitting at a 58.8 percent clip.
Kirsten Bogunovich just missed a triple-double with 23 assists, 12 digs and 8 kills while
Ruby Countryman and
Jenna Caskey chipped in with 6 and 5 kills, respectively.
Nyia Setla had a match-high 17 digs and
Laura Gamel backed Bogunovich with 18 assists.
The Hilltoppers never got anything going in the evening match against the host Warriors. Wayne State never trailed in the first two sets, taking control early with a 25-14 win in the opening set and backing that up with a 25-17 decision in the second set.
West Liberty battled back in the third set and held an 11-10 lead just before the midway mark but the Warriors – fresh off a 3-0 shutout of Daemen (N.Y.) – scored eight of the next 10 points to go up 18-13 on their way to completing the sweep with a 25-17 win.
Caskey had 9 kills to lead the WLU attack while Bogunovich finished with 14 assists and Setla added 14 digs.
The Hilltoppers close out the Warrior Invitational with two more matches on Saturday. West Liberty (1-1) takes on Walsh (2-0) in an 11:15 a.m match before a 3:45 p.m. tipoff against Daemen (0-2).
