By Mike Rudin – SPORTS EDITOR
After their four-match road trip down south, the Hofstra Pride traveled back to their home court at the David S. Mack Physical Center and gave the Pride faithful something to cheer for with a 3-1 set victory over the Siena Saints.
Content with the win, head coach Emily Mansur wasn’t completely pleased with the style of play her team showed during the 2015 home opener, thinking further down the season.
“It’s a win, which is a great thing, but [it’s] definitely not what represents Hofstra,” said Mansur. “I know [the] numbers are not really going to show but we didn’t play, the way we had to play, to be successful in the CAA today.”
One element that Emily Mansur wasn’t pleased about was the lack of execution in the serves department, a whopping 13 service errors by the Pride in the match. It was the second time this season the Pride committed that many errors in a single match, the first being against Duquesne University.
“It’s just unacceptable. Serving is something that it is a mindset and it’s really a responsibility as a player, so I can’t make any excuse why we had that,” said Mansur. “It’s not like we were playing aggressive towards that position that we were asking them to do because if that was it, then we would be fine but there were a lot of serves on the net. So, I think [it was] just being tense from the home game. But this is definitely something that we cannot have.”
Hofstra took the first set 25-21, Siena rebounded in the second set with a flip flop score of 25-21 to even the match at a standstill.
The third set hosted Veronika Kostova and Nanishka Perez making a path for Hofstra to take control of a critical set to win, both compiled 11 kills together. The set tied up at 25-25 after both teams showed signs early on in the third set, Hofstra had a 5-0 rally after the 15-11 mark and Siena started out strong at 10-4 after a 4-0 run.
Yet, the Saints basically gift-wrapped the third set to the Pride with back-to-back errors to provide Hofstra the 27-25 victory.
By the fourth set, Luisa Domingues was making strides on the offensive and defensive sides of the court but her offense came most useful in the midst of the final set of the match, providing three kills that greatly contributed to a 6-0 streak and propel Hofstra up by 10 points.
With three points left, the offensive works of Domingues and Kostova, plus a service error by Siena sealed the deal and Hofstra its record to 4-1 on the season.
Luisa Domingues pulled off the first double-double of the season with 14 digs and 13 kills within the match.
Kostova led the offense with 15 kills and Corrina Delgadillo led the defense with 26 digs, Sophia Black helped out on the back line with 16 digs. Leticia Valente spread her offensive talents throughout the match to gather 13 kills and Perez collected nine altogether. Hannah Klemm monopolized in assists with 56 out of 62 in total on the day.
Overall, even with the bright spots on the match, Hofstra struggled to put the Saints to bed early on with 37 errors in total – 22 on attack, 13 on serves and two on blocks. Plus, a great deal of their success came off the comfort of Siena’s struggles to execute well and not capitalizing enough to secure the match efficiently, breathing life back in Siena.
“We just got to find a consistency as a group to really make sure we are actually winning matches and not just letting errors win the matches for us,” said Mansur after the game.
Hofstra’s next matchup will be against Temple University on Friday at September 4th, starting at 4:30 p.m. in part of their first match in the Seton Hall Classic.
