PRINCESS ANNE, Md. (Nov. 15, 2019)-It's been said that every good thing comes to an end. Unfortunately, that was the case for the Morgan State volleyball team on Friday evening, as it had its season-long seven-match winning streak come to an end at Maryland Eastern Shore (MDES).
 
The host Hawks would defeat Morgan State by a score of 3-1 (28-26, 22-25, 25-23, 25-12) in a Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) Northern Division contest at the Hytche Athletic Center. It would be the Lady Bears' first loss in a month since Oct. 14, putting to rest a seven-match winning streak that was the program's longest since the 2006 team, which advanced to the MEAC title match, won a season-best 10 straight matches.
 
Alexis Lee hit for a match-best .636 with 15 kills, while Tatjana Trifkovic added 12 kills for MDES (12-17, 7-7 MEAC), who split the season series against Morgan State and kept its postseason hopes alive with the win. Stella Johnson collected a match-high 21 digs and Ilina Spasova finished with 13 digs and eight kills. Ivana Blazevic recorded a match-high 38 assists to go with a match-high six blocks and a match-high four service aces.
 
Morgan State (15-12, 9-5 MEAC) was led by Zoe McBride, who recorded eight of her match-high 16 kills in the opening set, but would be held without a kill in the fourth and final set, as the Hawks limited Morgan State to just six kills. Tylar Roberson and Sara Brown each added nine kills, while Jennevy Santos finished with a team-best 17 digs to go with six assists and Jasmin Hubbard tallied eight digs and recorded her first collegiate block.
 
Roi Wallace totaled 36 assists, to push her season-best total over the 1,000 mark. Wallace, who reached 1,000 assists in a season for the first time, now has 1,004 assists on the year, which ranks seventh on the school's single-season charts. Wallace, who has posted 3,540 career assists, currently ranks third at Morgan State, 105 assists shy of moving into second-place all-time.  
 
The Lady Bears trailed 4-1 early in the first set, before taking their first lead of the set a 14-13 on a kill by Brown. A kill by Trifovic tied the score at 14 apiece and Morgan State used a 4-0 run, capped off with back-to-back kills by Brown to take its largest lead of the set, 18-14. Trailing 25-24, the Hawks scored the next two points to take a 26-25 lead after an attack error on the Lady Bears. Roberson evened the score at 26 all, but a service error, followed by an attack error on the Lady Bears gave the hosts the 28-26 victory. Morgan State had 18 kills in Set 1, but did itself in with 10 attack errors for a .186 attack percentage. The Hawks finished with 12 kills and only had one attack error, as they hit .440 in the set.
 
The Lady Bears claimed Set 2, recording 13 kills in the second set and hit for .333, while holding the Hawks to nine kills and a .160 attack percentage to even the match at a set apiece. Brown would record two kills on three attempts to hit .667 for the set, while McBride added five kills and hit. 571. Morgan State broke a 7-7 score by using a 6-1 run to take a 13-8 advantage. The Hawks got within two points at 14-12 on a kill by Lee, but Morgan State pushed its lead to seven with a 7-2 spurt to increase its lead to 21-14. MDES would not go away, responding with a 6-0 run to pull within 21-20. Morgan State would end the set with Brown and Hubbard teaming up for a block to give the visitors the 25-22 victory.
 
However, Morgan State would not be able to use the momentum. Leading 20-17, the Lady Bears would have three attack errors in the midst of the Hawks' going on a 5-2 run to even the score at 22 all. Following a timeout by Morgan State, McBride responded with a kill to give the guests a 23-22 lead. But Maryland Eastern Shore would score the next three points, capped off with an ace by Anica Jestratijevic for the win.
 
The fourth and final set was all MDES, as the Hawks totaled 10 kills and had just one error for an attack percentage of .409. Morgan State was held to just six kills, but also committed six attack errors for an attack percentage of .000.
 
Morgan State finished the match with 49 kills and hit .176 for the match. The Lady Bears had nine service aces, but had 11 serving errors.
 
Maryland Eastern Shore hit .303 for the evening with 46 kills. Despite having 13 service errors, the Hawks finished with 11 aces. MDES also held a 10.0-3.5 blocking advantage over Morgan State.
 
The Lady Bears, who a week ago secured the No. 2 seed in the MEAC Northern Division, will close out the regular season on Sunday, Nov. 17 when they travel to Dover, Del. to visit Delaware State. The Hornets won the first meeting of the season in five sets in Baltimore (9/291). First serve is at 2 p.m. at Memorial Hall. The Hornets kept their postseason hopes alive with their defeat of Coppin State in five sets on Friday.