BALTIMORE, Md. (Oct. 17, 2018)-The Morgan State volleyball team entered Wednesday night's non-conference finale against visiting American, riding a season-long four-match winning streak as well as a nine-match home court winning streak, dating back to the last four home contests last season.
But the Eagles (14-9) put those streaks to rest, following a 3-0 (25-20, 28-26, 25-16) victory over the Lady Bears at Hill Field House. With the win, American increased its season-long winning streak to nine straight, while also extending its all-time series lead over Morgan State to 29-0.
Helena Elbaek hit for .429 and finished with 11 kills and Shannon Webb also added 11 kills, while hitting .391 to lead the Eagles. Behind Loren McKenzie's match-high .714 hitting percentage (five kills and no errors on seven attempts), American would hit .344 as a team.
Aleksandra Kazala recorded a team-high 11 digs and Kristen Largay added 10. Kennedy Etheridge tallied 34 assists and Vela McBride totaled a match-high three blocks to go with seven kills for American, who was also playing its final non-conference match of the season.
Morgan State (12-10) was led by Zoe McBride, who recorded a double-double with 12 kills and 12 digs, both team highs. Kalysia Bates and Cristen Coryatt added eight and seven kills, respectively. Roi Wallace finished with 28 assists and had a match-high four service aces. Monette Daniels collected three aces, as the Lady Bears finished with 10 service aces.
Despite having 10 service aces for the match, Morgan State committed a total of 11 service errors. A combined seven of those 11 serving errors came in the first two sets, which is the exact number of points Morgan State lost by in those sets.
American finished with three service aces and had eight errors. The Eagles held a 5.0-2.0 blocking advantage over Morgan State.
The Lady Bears will get the weekend off, before returning to league play for the second half of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference schedule. Morgan State will look to improve on its 5-1 home record when it hosts MEAC Northern Division leader Howard on Friday, Oct. 26. First serve is at 7 p.m. at Hill Field House.
