Outside hitters Ana Martinovic and Florencia Wolkowyski carried the Hofstra volleyball team to a sweep over the College of William & Mary on Saturday, Oct. 9, at the David S. Mack Physical Education Center. The Pride improved its record to 10-8 overall and 4-3 in Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play as they won with set scores of 25-22, 25-22 and 25-21.
“It’s nice to see a win where we kind of commanded the pace of the game throughout and it’s always great to get a sweep,” said Hofstra associate head coach Hava Davis, who will be taking over for head coach Emily Mansur following the match as she goes on maternity leave. “It’s also nice to send [Mansur] out on a high note.”
Martinovic and Wolkowyski each racked up 13 kills as the former hit for an impressive .333 attack percentage and the latter had an even better .458. The two players combined to be a deadly duo in the second and third sets and combined for 29.5 of Hofstra’s 64 total points.
“I think it’s a really interesting and fun duo or tandem of attackers,” Davis said. “The reason being [Martinovic] is not really known well for being a power attacker. She’s very crafty, she has a lot of shots, she moves the ball around the court quite a bit. And then [Wolkowyski], who is pretty new to everybody, is just an absolute hammer. She hits the ball hard and that’s a good one-two punch for us.”
While Hofstra did complete a sweep, the Tribe gave them some trouble and forced the Pride to make several comebacks throughout. Hofstra trailed by as many as six points in both the second and third sets but came back with strong performances from its two outside hitters as well as blocking extraordinaire Sarah Pierre, who tallied 11 total blocks in the match.
This was Pierre’s third match this season where she has reached double-digit blocks, the first time a Hofstra player has achieved that feat since Adama Aja in 2014, and she continues to be a top defender in the CAA. Pierre ranks second in the conference with 76 total blocks while the Pride as a team leads with 2.54 blocks per set.
“When we do scouting, we always are looking at who the opponents are trying to set and who their priorities are and our week has always been taken up with figuring out who we want to try and neutralize,” Davis said. “I think our players did a good job throughout the match, we had a few misses here and there, but they did a pretty good job of knowing who they were supposed to be in front of.”
William & Mary’s top offensive weapon and defender Julia Brown struggled throughout the match and finished with nine kills and five errors. It was certainly a down performance for the graduate student, who leads the CAA in hitting percentage, but recorded a percentage of below .280 for the first time since Saturday, Sept. 18.
Following the conclusion of this weekend’s matches against the Tribe, Hofstra will travel to South Carolina to take on the College of Charleston on Saturday, Oct. 16, and Sunday, Oct. 17, at 1 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
