TOWSON, Md. -- The Elizabethtown College women's volleyball team won both of its matches on Saturday at Goucher in a Landmark Conference tri-match with the Gophers and Scranton. The Blue Jays handled host Goucher 3-1 before sweeping the Royals to cap off the program's first postseason berth since 2013 and first in the Landmark Conference. E-town finished the season 4-2 in conference play.
Elizabethtown 3, Goucher 1
Elle Shatto and
Bryanna Miller led the Blue Jays with 17 kills apiece in the four-set win over Goucher (12-13, 0-5 Landmark). Miller also added five aces while Shatto had four.
Rileigh Hudock had a team-high 25 assists and
Sarah Hanks added 19 more for Elizabethtown (25-9, 4-2 Landmark). Defensively, Miller had a team-best 21 digs while
Aiyana Tietze-Di Toro had 19.
The Jays took a 1-0 lead with a 25-20 win in the opening set. The Gophers evened the match with a narrow 29-27 win in set two. E-town owned the rest of the match, outscoring Goucher 50-30 to win both the third and fourth sets by scores of 25-17 and 25-13.
Elizabethtown 3, Scranton 0
Elizabethtown and Scranton (14-17, 1-4 Landmark) played a fairly even match. Both teams had three blocks and a team total of 76 digs. The Blue Jays held slight advantages in kills, aces, and assists, but got the job done where the needed to, which was on the scoreboard.
E-town won the first set 25-19, but needed to pull away to do so. The Royals were within a point, 19-18, after a ball handling error was called on the Jays. Ahead by two,
Courtney Westman and Shatto helped aid a four-point spurt to close out the opening set. Westman came up with the set-clinching block to give Elizabethtown the 1-0 lead.
The second set was another nailbiter for the Blue Jays, though two errors by the Royals on back-to-back points while the teams were tied at 24 cost Scranton the chance to get level. The Royals had also led 8-2 after the first ten points.
In turn, Elizabethtown led early in the third set, but Scranton came storming back after being down 8-4 with seven consecutive points to take an 11-8 lead.
E-town made a run of its own to get back into the lead and the teams spent much of the remaining part of the set trading points and rallies.
Just as it had been in the previous set, the Jays and Royals were tied at 24-24 and two straight from Elizabethtown closed it out. Shatto put the Royals away on a feed from Hudock for match point.
The women's volleyball team finishes with its best conference record since the 2013 season, also the last time the Blue Jays were in the conference playoffs.