VILLANOVA, Pa. – The High Point University volleyball team returned to the Jake Nevin Field House for the teams second game of the Villanova Classic. The Panthers battled through another five-set match and came out with a victory over Yale University, 3-2.
Four Panthers reached career-highs on the attack, led by
Gia Padilla with 21 kills for a .383 hitting percentage, surpassing her previous career-high of 16 kills when she played for Mercer.
Maya Bukovcan tallied 18 kills on a .571 hitting percentage, followed by Élodie Lalonde with 15 kills and
Addison Freeland with 11 kills along with a team-high .588 hitting percentage.
"A great win tonight against a very tough opponent," Head Coach
Ryan Meek stated. "After a disappointing loss last night I thought we did a much better job staying committed to our systems and the way we want to play. We limited unforced errors, found some rhythm attacking and were able to start quickly in the fifth set. A great win, but we need to recover quickly for an undefeated Villanova team tomorrow."
Site: Jake Nevin Field house
Score: High Point 3, Yale 2
Records: High Point (2-3), Yale (0-2)
How it Happened:
Like the game before, High Point got out to a slow start in set one and went down 3-0 early. The Panthers took back the lead, but Yale advanced on a 5-0 run to go up 11-7.
HPU steadily trailed by three or more through the remainder of the set and called a timeout while trailing 19-14. Yale served an ace out of the timeout but an outside kill from Lalonde stopped the run. Yale advanced on and took the set 25-19.
Opening set two, both teams exchanged points early. Freeland sparked a run with a strong kill from the middle that hit a wide-open gap in the back of the court. Tied at 6-6 the Panthers took a 10-6 lead after getting the offense clicking.
High Point led 21-15 late in the set but a handful of Panther errors allowed Yale to make it a two-point game at 21-19. Gaining her 10th kill of the night, Padilla hammered down two back-to-back kills to secure the second set for HPU 25-20. After two sets, Padilla was hitting over .450.
Padilla kept it going in the third set on the attack, registering three more kills before HPU reached its 10th point.
The third set remained close as both teams exchanged points with four lead changes. HPU went down 12-9 but after challenging a line call, Lalonde's kill was counted in which adjusted the score to 11-10. An attack error on Yale tied the set at 11 all.
After a Padilla kill for her 15th of the game, Yale went on 7-0 run to go up 19-12. A Freeland kill broke Yale's run but after trailing by as many as eight points, HPU could not recover and fell 25-17 in set three.
Set four witnessed another back-and-forth battle as the Panthers could not break away and struggled to string together multiple plays to gain a large lead.
Bukovcan, Lalonde and Padilla continued to dominate on the attack as Bukovcan and Lalonde each surpassed double-digit kills. Padilla reached a new milestone with 20 kills in set four.
A kill from Bukovcan on the slide gave High Point a 19-16 lead which forced Yale to call a timeout. Coming out of the timeout, Yale score three points to High Point's one to make it 20-19 which forced the Panthers to take a timeout of their own. HPU prevailed and took set four to tie the match 2-2.
Yale made set five competitive early, but High Point picked up the intensity by the midway point causing Yale's defense to get tight and frazzled. After trailing 3-2, Bukovcan contributed on two blocks and a kill to help High Point take a 6-3 lead. By the mid-set switch, HPU led 8-3 with the momentum in the Panthers favor.
High Point reached the 10-point mark with a powerful kill in the middle from Freeland to earn her 10th kill of the night and reach a new career-high. The Panthers secured the final five points of the set for a 15-9 victory and 3-2 overall win.
Extra Stats:
- The stat lines between the two teams were almost even for the game. HPU registered 69 kills to Yale's 67 kills, High Point had six blocks to Yale's seven blocks and both teams picked up 56 digs.
- Remy Catojo had a career-high 52 assists and was one of three Panthers to reach double-digits on the dig with 10. Kea Whillock collected a team-high 12 digs and Padilla tallied 10.
UP NEXT:
High Point remains at the Villanova Classic and will play the tournament host, Villanova on Sunday, September 7 at 2:00 p.m. Tune in on YouTube Live or follow along with live updates on X (@HPUVB).
#GoHPU
