November 11, 2005 - Rider 3 Canisius 2
November 11, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
College Volleyball
Rider University 3, Canisius College 2
Minor 1,000 career digs
BUFFALO, NY—In a match that seemed to take as long as the drive, the Broncs won a two-hour Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference match at Canisius Friday night.
Rider defeated the Golden Griffins (8-17, 2-6 MAAC) 30-25, 30-28, 21-30, 27-30, 15-12 and have won two out of the last three matches.
In a major milestone for senior Embrey Minor (Lindenhurst, N.Y./Lindenhurst), the 5’3” defensive specialist had four digs, reaching the 1,000 dig mark in her career before separating her shoulder in the second game of the match. Minor added 14 assists and three service aces and finished her career with 1,001 digs. With the injury, Minor will miss the final match of her career on Saturday, only the second time that Minor has missed a match, breaking a streak of 107 straight matches played. The last match Minor missed was at Columbia on September 13, 2002, in the eighth game of her freshman year.
“The milestone was very important to me and the team,” said Minor. “Getting 1,000 digs is a group effort, not just an individual accomplishment and it reflects on how hard all of us have worked. The injury was not the way I planned on ending my career but the win is helping to ease the pain.”
In the first game, Rider was up 18-10 before Canisius went on an 8-1 run to close Rider’s lead to 19-18. With the score tied at 21, Rider went on an 8-2 run, led by three kills from Jennifer Drummond (Lindenhurst, N.Y./Lindenhurst) to take a 29-23 lead, enroute to a 30-25 win. Drummond finished with 14 kills.
Down 23-14 in game two, the Broncs went off on an 11-1 run, led by three kills from senior Stefanie Lombardo (New Castle, Pa./Laurel) to take a 25-24 lead in the 30-28 win. Lombardo finished with 20 kills and 20 digs. On the point that Rider took the lead (25-24), Minor suffered the injury. “We had the emotion of taking the lead and a very high amount of energy,” said head coach Emily Ahlquist. “Then the injury happened but we were able to hold on and win the second game, and we used the 10 minute scheduled break between games two and three to regroup and adjust our offense to a 5-1 set instead of the 6-2 set that we’ve been running most of the season.”
The adjustment took a little longer as Canisius won games three and four. Tied at 15 in the third game, Canisius closed out the game with a 15-6 run, winning 30-21. Tied at 16 in game four, the Golden Griffins pulled away late with a 6-0 run to win 30-27.
But the Broncs wouldn’t be denied.
In the deciding fifth game, Rider trailed 5-1 before going on a 10-3 run, with senior Kristine Dormer (Bowie, Md./Elizabeth Seton) compiling seven assists to take an 11-8 lead and closed out the match winning 15-12. Dormer finished with 49 assists and seven digs.
“Game five, we put it into second gear,” added Ahlquist. “That’s where our energy and physical fitness took over and we were able to overcome being shorthanded again.”
“The way the match went, you would think it was just the seniors,” said Stefanie Lombardo who had a ‘double-double’. “But it was a total group effort. The bench really stepped up and the whole team held together to overcome the adversity of the injury and losing a 2-0 match lead.”
The Broncs still have something to play for even though a trip back to Buffalo next weekend for the MAAC tournament isn’t in the plans.
“We still have a chance to go out on a winning streak,” added Lombardo. “We’re going to be under dogs going into Niagara and they have two MAAC matches left. If we beat them, we get to play spoiler and knock them out of the playoff race so we’re going to give everything we’ve got to try to go out with a win.” Niagara (4-3 MAAC) enters the match in a three way tie for the fourth and final playoff spot with Saint Peter’s and Manhattan.
Also for Rider (10-18, 2-6 MAAC), freshman Lacey Johnson (Aurora, Colo./Grandview) had 18 digs and 11 kills, sophomore Nastasja Avramovic (Philadelphia, Pa./Northeast ) had 29 digs and junior Megan Smith (Webster, N.Y./Webster) had 18 kills.
Rider stays in Western New York to complete the 2005 season against the Purple Eagles from Niagara on Saturday.
-RU-
