BALTIMORE, Md. – The High Point University volleyball team continued the teams stretch of early season tournaments with a trip up North for the UMBC/Howard Invitational. The Panthers took on the Retrievers on Friday night and after battling through five competitive sets, HPU finished the match with a 3-2 victory.
"We saw a lot of growth in the 5th set tonight," Head Coach
Ryan Meek stated. "We played hard through dips and found a way to grind out the few points that we needed to get the win. UMBC was in the NCAA Tournament last year so they're a tough team that knows how to win. I think we've seen us struggle when things are tight the past few weeks and tonight, I felt like we just did a better job competing and earning points."
High Point came out steady in the opening set and coasted its way to 25-22 first set win. Three Panthers secured four kills in the first set with BayLead Sparks leading with a .667 hit percentage and two blocks from the middle. After the Panthers stretched to an 18-14 lead, UMBC made a four-point run and tied the set at 18 all.
Dylan Maberry,
Kennedy Louisell and Sparks helped finish the set.
In set two, the Retrievers answered and made small runs to put pressure on the Panthers. High Point went on its own 5-0 run to tie the set at 11 all but UMBC made it tough with two 4-0 runs of their own, eventually taking the set 25-19.
HPU took off on a hot start in the third set. Four kills, three blocks and a service ace propelled the Panthers to a 7-1 lead right out the gate. Moving and grooving, High Point pressed on to a 13-5 lead and held the lead throughout the entire set. Maberry picked up five of her 19 kills in the third set.
The fourth set witnessed 10 lead changes and 16 ties, which was the most of any set from the evening. The attack was led by Maberry, Louisell and
Arica Davis all combining for 13 of the Panthers 17 kills. Taking it down to the wire Sparks gave HPU a one-point advantage with back-to-back kills from the middle to make it 23-22. With a chance to end the match, a Maberry kill from the outside tied the set at 24 all but a kill and block from UMBC ended the set 26-24, to tie the game at 2-2, forcing a fifth set.
In the fifth set the Panthers trailed by three at the mid-game switch, 8-5. With not as much time and less points to reach, High Point dug deep and made a big run with big blocks and big swings from Louisell and Sparks. On the back line,
Kea Whillock was covering on all hits from UMBC, diving all over the floor to pick up the tips off the block.
High Point had a 10-8 following its 5-0 run but two kills from UMBC and two errors by the Panthers gave the Retrievers their first lead since the set switch at 12-11. Exchanging points through the final rally of the game, a kill from
Eve Wilson tied the set at 14 all. Wilson and Davis double blocked for the 15
th point and Maberry shot a kill between two backrow defenders to secure the 16-14 victory and the 3-2 match win.
Maberry led on the attack with 19 kills,
Hannah Hawkins contributed a career-high 50 assists,
Jordyn Schilling secured 27 digs and Sparks and Davis each produced seven block assists.
Up Next:
High Point will play Princeton and Howard on Saturday, September 21 for doubleheader action starting at 12:00pm and 6:00pm on the campus of Howard University.
#GoHPU
