The Hofstra volleyball team suffered a sweep against the College of Charleston on Saturday, Oct. 16, at TD Arena, losing with set scores of 25-22, 25-22 and 25-15. The loss snapped the Pride’s brief two-match winning streak and dropped its overall record to 11-9 and Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) record to 5-4.
Mistakes were the key factor in Hofstra’s struggles as the Pride committed 17 attack errors in the match and finished with a .167 hitting percentage. Charleston, on the other hand, had a .312 hitting percentage and was led by Lexi Wierzbicki’s 13 kills.
Hofstra and Charleston were locked in a back-and-forth battle to begin the first set but after the score was knotted at six, the Cougars began to break away. A Gabi Bailey kill followed by two consecutive service aces helped Charleston build a three-point lead and it never looked back.
Hofstra kept the score close throughout the rest of the set and even came within two points multiple times but the Cougars continuously prevented it from going on a run. The struggles with attack errors killed the Pride’s late comeback attempt after they made it a 24-22 score. Yagmur Cinel sent a ball out of bounds for Hofstra’s fourth error of the set and gave Charleston a 1-0 advantage in the match.
The second set was a different story but still saw the Pride fall by the same 25-22 score. Hofstra led for most of the stanza but could not hold on late and fell behind 2-0 in the match.
With Hofstra leading 15-13, the Cougars exploded on an 8-2 scoring run and built up a four-point lead. Once again, the Pride were sloppy with the ball and committed three errors during Charleston’s run while also giving the Cougars a service ace. Charleston clinched the second set after two consecutive attack errors by Ana Martinovic.
The third and final set ended up being more of a disaster than the first two sets for the Pride. Hofstra never held a lead once and failed to gain momentum to make a comeback. Charleston used another 8-2 run to take a 10-point lead over the Pride and ended up finishing the sweep four points later on kills by Bailey and Claire Campbell.
Hofstra struggled the entire match with consistency while Charleston took advantage of every mistake made by the Pride. Martinovic was the only member of Hofstra to reach double digit kills with 13. The next leading scorer was Athina Dimitriadis with seven.
Following its final match against Charleston on Sunday, Oct. 17, the Pride will return home for two straight matches against UNC-Wilmington on Saturday, Oct. 30, and Sunday, Oct. 31.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
