By Olson Barthelemy

For the second consecutive week, Pride junior setter Shellane Ogoshi was awarded the CAA Player of the Week Award. As was the case last week, when Ogoshi shared the award with Northeastern’s Brittany Eukovich, she accepted the award this week with Allyson Halls of James Madison. The award follows what was quite the milestone weekend for Ogoshi as, with her 43 assists against Delaware, she passed Ines Portuondo for sole possession of third place on the all-time assist list with 2,974. To follow up that performance, Ogoshi notched her 3,000th assist in the match against Towson (her 49 assists in the match leaves her career total at 3,023). “Thank goodness I have her. She’s terrific, she’s a leader,” interim head coach Lauren Netherby said. “She’s consistent, not only in setting the ball and running the offense, but in defense and by the serving game. She’s an all around great player and I couldn’t be happier to have a player like her.”PICKING UP THE SLACKWith junior right side Talita Silva still sidelined with a knee injury, her teammates are picking up the slack. In the absence of Silva, the Pride is looking towards the dynamic athletes on the roster to hold down the fort until Silva returns in October. With her game-high 17 kills against Towson, junior Amanda Beyersdorff is certainly providing much needed offense. Lauren Engle’s 14 kills also contributed greatly to the Pride’s victory. With Silva missing on the right side, two other players filling the gap are Ogoshi and senior Beverly Rivera. “The team feeds off certain types of players. Shellane and Beverly are really exciting dynamic players,” Netherby said. “Whenever they do something and they get fired up about it, the team responds to it. They’re kind of vital to this system here.”As for their roles in Silva’s absence, Ogoshi said, “She [Silva] was a big energy boost for us on the right side; since she’s not playing right now it’s nice to [still] have someone to look to. If I’m down I can always rely on Beverly. We just have a good thing going on between us and we look for each other on the court.”