Prior to this past weekend, the Hofstra volleyball team was riding high with a 3-0 record and sitting atop the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) North Division. However, two sloppy performances against Northeastern University resulted in two losses on Friday, March 5 and Sunday, March 7, one at home and one on the road.  

The Pride has now fallen to third place in the division with a 3-2 overall record and an 0-2 record in CAA play.

The Pride entered CAA play on Friday coming off wins against the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Stony Brook University and Seton Hall University. They continued that strong play in their first match with Northeastern, winning a hard-fought battle in set one to take a 1-0 lead.

But from there, things spiraled out of control for head coach Emily Mansur and her team. They dropped the next three sets to the Huskies with scores of 25-15, 25-18 and 25-18, as all three were one-sided affairs.

“Our outside and right side hitters just have to be smarter. They really tried to play a power game, and that’s not a game we are very good at,” Mansur said after their loss on Friday. “We created a lot of unforced errors, so I think one thing that we’re really going to fix is for them to have the patience to let the game happen and don’t try to finish the game on the first ball.”

Mansur was also forced to manipulate her lineup many times throughout the match, causing inconsistent play and allowing Northeastern to go on multiple huge scoring runs.

“It’s unfortunate. It’s not something that’s really part of my character. Usually we have one lineup and we stick to it for a whole season,” Mansur said. “We had a lot of internal things that happened this week that forced us to have to do this and it also took a little bit of the energy away from being able to put our best team up to play.”

One of those examples was Madeline Matheny, who racked up a set-high six kills in the Pride’s only win of the day but was held to just four the rest of the match and even sat out one set.

On Sunday, Mansur was able to roll out a more consistent lineup with her usual rotation of players who won three matches this season. The only exception was, once again, Matheny, who has been a starter most of her Hofstra career, but only played two out of the four sets. But, even with these players back on the court, the results from their first match against the Huskies did not change.

The Pride fell in four sets for the second consecutive match. They were distinctly inconsistent, losing badly 25-16 in set one, winning the second set 25-22, getting crushed 25-15 in set three and fighting hard, but losing 25-22 in the final set.

Hofstra was hurt by a myriad of errors in both matches, and players like Ana Martinovic, Zyare Abdul-Rahim and Athina Dimitriadis struggled to get their attacks past the Huskies’ strong defense.

The Pride’s attack percentage was a mere .094 on Friday compared to Northeastern’s .237. They also committed 28 errors to the Huskies’ 15. On Sunday, those numbers were not much better, finishing with a .151 attack percentage and 22 errors while Northeastern improved with a .254 percentage and 15 errors.

Hofstra will be back in action to try and snap a two-match skid at home on Friday, March 12 as they continue CAA play against Towson University at 4 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein/The Hofstra Chronicle