By Victoria Mickens – STAFF WRITER
The Hofstra Volleyball team fought long and hard this season to keep up the five-match win streak they were on.
Unfortunately, this streak was broken in Towson, Maryland on Friday evening where the Pride took a hard loss in three sets to the Towson Tigers. Hofstra’s overall record has now dropped to 14-7 and their colonial athletic association play fell to 5-1.
At this point, Hofstra is 40-13 all-time against Towson.
This loss to the Tigers on Friday, marked the first time since Oct. 18 of last season (nine days shy of one year ago) that Hofstra was defeated in three sets in CAA play.
This by no means entails any lack of effort or performance on the part of the Pride. In fact, junior outside hitter, Veronika Kostova has reached double digits in kills every match for the past six matches.
Hofstra gradually improved throughout the entire match, which was quite impressive given how close the match was to begin with. They gave it their all but it only got them to arm’s reach of taking the match to a fourth set.
All three sets were very close, each set was lost by two or three points. The Towson Tigers were first to score but the Pride answered back immediately and the sets continued on with this dynamic.
It was a back and forth endeavor until the very end. The results of each set were as followed: 25-23 in the first, 27-25 in the second, and 25-22 in the third.
Despite the loss, Hofstra volleyball has a solid rest of the season to look forward to given the stellar performance of the Pride freshman, in this particular match.
Freshman libero Luisa Domingues tied junior setter, Hannah Klemm, for team-high honors with her nine digs.
Klemm posted 36 assists and a team high as well. Michela Rucli, freshman middle blocker, posted a team-high four block assists in the match.
Additionally, freshman outside hitter, Nanishka Perez, had her day in the sun and led the Pride with 15 kills. Veronika Kostova, junior outside hitter, followed up with 13 kills and Perez added eight more digs.
On Friday, the Pride had met their match but in defeat proved they were willing to put up a fight in order stay in contention.