Volleyball Bounces Back With 3-1 Win Over Wellesley

BOSTON, Massachusetts -- Four Beacons finished with eight kills or more, as UMass Boston rolled to their first-ever home victory over Wellesley College Friday night at the Clark Athletic Center Gymnasium.

THE BASICS
UMass Boston 3, Wellesley College 0
(UMass Boston 4-9, Little East 1-1)
(Wellesley College 7-8, NEWMAC 4-1)

HOW IT HAPPENED
UMass Boston used a balanced attack to earn their third-straight 3-0 sweep at home and improve to 3-2 against Wellesley College over the past four years.

Freshman Haley Diedrick (Canton, Mich.) tied her career-high with eight kills and hit a career-best .727 on 11 swings.

Junior Julia Murphy (Canton, Mass.) led the Beacons with a match-high 11 kills, while Colleen Koen
(Centerville, Mass.) and Eileen Shi (San Francisco, Calif.) added 10 and nine kills respectively.

Pepper Baker (Tallahassee, Fla.) tied her season-high with 34 assists and fellow junior Elizabeth Glavan (Edina, Minn.) paced UMass Boston with 14 digs.

UMass Boston roared out to huge leads in the first and second set, only to have the Blue come back and tighten the set near the midway point. In the first set, UMass Boston saw their seven-point lead (10-3) reduced to one (13-12), before the Beacons closed out the set on a 12-4 run to grab a 25-16 set win.

The second set would be more of the same, as Wellesley managed to grab a 14-12 lead, only to have the Beacons score 13 of the final 19 points (25-20).

Both sides struggled to gain a foothold through the first 22 points (11-11) of the third and final set. UMass Boston used a 4-0 service run from Elizabeth Glavan (Edina, Minn.) to grab a 15-11 lead and never looked back en-route to a 25-20 win.

Wellesley's big two hitters, Yasmine Reece and Brooke Fieldman, managed just six kills apiece and hit a combined .048.

Freshman setter Michelle Li led the Blue with 24 assists and tacked on three kills, while freshman libero Samantha Hoang posted a team-best eight digs.

BY THE NUMBERS

•  UMass Boston improved to 3-3 at home, with their third-straight 3-0 win. 
•  After dropping their first six matches against Wellesley, the Beacons improved to 3-8 all-  time.
•  The Beacons hit above .200 in all three sets and finished with a season-high .360 hitting  percentage, 98 points higher then their next closest figure. 
•  UMass Boston's 11 attack errors marked a new season-low. 
•  Both sides finished with 10 service errors, but UMass Boston held a six-three advantage in  aces.

WHO'S NEXT
UMass Boston will finish off their stretch of three matches in three days with a roadtrip to defending New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference Champion Babson College. The Beacons and Beavers are set for a 1 p.m. first serve on Saturday.