By Regina Volpe – STAFF WRITER
The Hofstra Pride volleyball team fell to the James Madison Dukes in their match Saturday, November 7th, by a 3-1 decision.

The first set was promising, the Pride surpassing the Dukes by six points, ending at 25-19. JMU upped their game in the remaining sets, but the Pride never let themselves fall too far behind. The second set ended in 23-25, while the third and fourth resulted in 22-25.

The Pride put up a valiant fight in the fourth set, managing to close a 6 point gap to remain within a point or two of James Madison for the remainder of the set.

Though both JMU and the Pride played a strong defense, the offense stumbled this match, only a few players notching the clutch kills needed to catch up to the Dukes.

Sophomore Leticia Valente led the team in kills, racking up 18 by the end of the match; earning 19.5 points overall. Not far behind was junior Veronika Kostova with 14 kills overall, totaling 16 points this match.

Trailing Valente and Kostova were Nanishka Perez and Michela Rucli, both totaling 9 kills in the match.

Though they were the top scorers, the Dukes’ defense quickly started to play to block them. Head coach Emily Mansur said, “We had two players actually killing the ball so everybody knew where the ball was going.”

With this loss the Pride now stands at 9-4 in the CAA, and 18-9 overall. Their next match will be this Monday November 9th, home against the University of Delaware.

As the season comes to a close, matches are now nearly back-to-back. With the match against Towson only a day before, there was the real chance of fatigue in the Pride. Head coach Mansur mentioned, “It’s hard to play especially at the end when we start to get a little fatigued and have to play some of the best teams back-to-back.”