Boston College Athletics
Volleyball Falls to Holy Cross in Five
September 10, 2010 | Volleyball
Sept. 10, 2010 - Smithfield, R.I.
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The Boston College volleyball team was defeated by Holy Cross, 2-3, in its opening match of the Bryant Tournament in Smithfield, R.I. on Friday night. The Eagles fell to the Crusaders in five sets, 25-17, 19-24, 28-26, 22-25, 13-15, to move to 4-4 on the year. Junior outside hitter Brennan Clark led BC with a double-double, racking up 25 digs and 24 kills on .279 attack percentage, as many Eagles had career-nights despite the loss.
“The match was very tight,” head coach Chris Campbell said. “We had opportunities to finish plays and score points that we just didn’t capitalize on. Holy Cross is a good team and when they have more chances to swing, they will convert some of those into points. We did everything else right. We out-blocked, out-hit and out-dug them.”
Collectively, the squad bested its own match-highs so far this year with 70 kills on 175 attempts, 65 assists, 89 digs and 11 blocks. Four Eagles set or equaled individual season-high marks previously set by the team in attack percentage, kills, assists, digs and aces.
Three Eagles recorded double-doubles for the first time since Oct. 28, 2007, when Boston College defeated Wake Forest in five sets. In addition to Clark, outside hitters junior Tsvetelina Dureva, who recorded 11 digs and a season-high attack percentage (.333) on 16 kills, and sophomore Val Mattaliano, who tallied 14 kills on .225 attack percentage and 10 digs, reached the double-digit plateau.
“Brennan, Lina and Val all took a lot of swings and hit for a good percentage,” Campbell stated. “We started off the match setting well to Krystle [Higgins] in the middle as well. We were controlling the game nicely. Eventually, Holy Cross made some adjustments and put two blockers on all of them and we still hit a nice percentage. I’m really proud of how they are all developing.”
The Eagles opened the match with a victory in set one, 25-17. Both sides exchanged leads early in the game. With the score tied, 9-9, sophomore setter Krissy Mussenden connected with Dureva and sophomore middle hitter Krystle Higgins on back-to-back kills to ignite the BC attack. The Eagles kicked into high-gear and pulled away for the win.
Setters Mussenden and freshman Cagla Sen each recorded season-bests, with 39 and 19 assists respectively, as did senior libero Kristen Baader, who tallied 28 digs. Holy Cross evened the match in the second.
Boston College played from behind for most of the third set, but claimed the win in dramatic fashion, 28-26. Holy Cross won the fourth set, 22-25, and sealed the match in the fifth, 12-15, twice escaping late surges by the Eagles.
“Unfortunately, we had to learn a painful lesson tonight,” Campbell said. “We played well, but not well enough. Tomorrow we will move on and have to play better. We are never happy to contribute to the loss column, but if we learn from it, a loss like this can only make our program stronger.”
Saturday, Boston College returns Smithfield, R.I. for the second day of the Bryant Tournament against Navy at 3 p.m. Later that day, the Eagles will face Bryant University at 7 p.m. in the final game of the competition. Live stats will be available through PrestoSports for both games, while the tournament finale may be streamed live via subscription-based service bryantbulldogs.tv.
