The second-seeded Hofstra volleyball team fell to the seventh-seeded College of William & Mary in the first round of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Championship in a five-set classic. The loss marks the end of the road for Pride, who had the second most conference wins in program history with 14, trailing only the 2006 championship-winning team, which had 16.
Hofstra was up 2-0 after the first two sets but was not able to close it out as they lost the next three. The set scores were 25-19, 25-20, 14-25, 18-25 and 12-15.
Redshirt senior Zyare Abdul-Rahim led the Pride with 14 kills while Sarah Pierre and Yagmur Cinel had nine and seven kills respectively. Chiara Cucco led the team in digs with 22, and Beatriz Alves had 45 assists.
The first set was dead even to start, with Hofstra getting kills from Emily Nunes, Izadora Stedile, Clara Bal, Pierre and Abdul-Rahim. While tied at 15-15, the Pride went on a 10-4 run with three kills and two service aces to close out the first set.
The second set started the same as the first as both teams did not want to give up the lead. That stopped midway through, however, as Hofstra went on a 7-1 run that saw six kills and a service ace to pull ahead. Kills by Cinel, Nunes, Abdul-Rahim and Beatriz Alves and a service ace by Bal closed out the second set to give the Pride a 2-0 lead.
William & Mary got off to a quick start in the third set as Maddie Meyers hit three kills in the first eight points. Hofstra narrowed the lead to 13-11 but then gave up a 9-1 run to put the set out of reach. William & Mary held the Pride to 14 points.
Tied 5-5 in the fourth set, Hofstra once again let up a 9-1 run. Three kills, two service aces and four attack errors gave William & Mary a huge lead with which they did not give up. The last eight points for them were all kills and from five different players. Meyers, Sabrina Malcolm, Olivia Esposito, Emily Minnick and Nicole Smith helped William & Mary climb all the way back and force a fifth set.
Hofstra could not contain the attack from William & Mary, as 11 of their 15 points came off kills. The Pride kept it close, with Alves, Abdul-Rahim, Stedile and Bal all picking up kills to keep their hopes alive. However, Minnick set up Taylor Burrell for one last kill to eliminate Hofstra from the CAA Championship and send themselves to the second round.
After the first two sets, William & Mary kept the Pride attack in check as they did not have a single lead from the fourth point of the third set onward.
Hofstra had won 16 consecutive matches against William & Mary, and their all-time record is now 31-19.
Alves finished the season with 1,042 assists while Abdul-Rahim led the team with 308 kills.
Photo Courtesy of Towson Athletics
